When an intense, few-cycle light pulse impinges on a dielectric or semiconductor material, the electric field will interact nonlinearly with the solid, driving a coherent current. An asymmetry of the ultrashort, carrier-envelope-phase-stable waveform results in a net transfer of charge, which can be measured by macroscopic electric contact leads. This effect has been pioneered with extremely short, single-cycle laser pulses at low repetition rate, thus limiting the applicability of its potential for ultrafast electronics. We investigate lightwave-driven currents in gallium nitride using few-cycle laser pulses of nearly twice the duration and at a repetition rate 2 orders of magnitude higher than in previous work. We successfully simulate our experimental data with a theoretical model based on interfering multiphoton transitions, using the exact laser pulse shape retrieved from dispersion-scan measurements. Substantially increasing the repetition rate and relaxing the constraint on the pulse duration marks an important step forward toward applications of controlling currents with light.

中文翻译：

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半导体中以高重复频率产生的很少周期的光波驱动电流

当强烈的，短周期的光脉冲入射到电介质或半导体材料上时，电场将与固体发生非线性相互作用，从而驱动相干电流。超短的，载流​​子-信封-相位稳定的波形的不对称会导致电荷的净转移，这可以通过宏观的电接触引线来测量。这种效果已经以极低的重复频率，极短的单周期激光脉冲率先提出，因此限制了其潜力用于超快电子产品。我们使用短周期激光脉冲来研究氮化镓中的光波驱动电流，该激光脉冲的持续时间几乎是持续时间的两倍，重复频率比以前的工作高2个数量级。我们使用基于干扰多光子跃迁的理论模型成功地模拟了实验数据，使用从色散扫描测量中获得的精确激光脉冲形状。大大提高重复率并放松对脉冲持续时间的限制，标志着朝着应用光控制电流迈出了重要的一步。