Determining hot-carrier transport dynamics from terahertz emission

journal article in Web of Science

en

When electrons are optically excited high into the conduction band, they usually thermalize rapidly, losing energy through scattering processes. The ability to efficiently extract hot-carriers in the upper conduction band would be useful but is hampered by the lack of understanding of the processes involved. Taghinejad et al. developed a technique based on analyzing the terahertz pulses emitted by the hot-carriers (see the Perspective by Bangle and Mikkelsen). Modeling allowed them to unravel the spatiotemporal dynamics of the hot-carrier transport, providing a clearer picture for developing applications such as energy harvesting and photochemistry that can exploit these high-energy hot-carriers.

When electrons are optically excited high into the conduction band, they usually thermalize rapidly, losing energy through scattering processes. The ability to efficiently extract hot-carriers in the upper conduction band would be useful but is hampered by the lack of understanding of the processes involved. Taghinejad et al. developed a technique based on analyzing the terahertz pulses emitted by the hot-carriers (see the Perspective by Bangle and Mikkelsen). Modeling allowed them to unravel the spatiotemporal dynamics of the hot-carrier transport, providing a clearer picture for developing applications such as energy harvesting and photochemistry that can exploit these high-energy hot-carriers.

hot electrons, terahertz emission,

19.10.2023

0036-8075

382

6668

299–305

7