Stark control of electrons along nanojunctions

• DOI: 10.1038/s41467-018-04393-4
• Publication Date: 2018-05-21T11:36:14Z
• Authors: Liping Chen; Yu Zhang; GuanHua Chen; Ignacio Franco
• Keywords: Nanoelectronics; State of matter

Ultrafast control of currents on the nanoscale is essential for future innovations in nanoelectronics. Recently it was experimentally demonstrated that strong non-resonant few-cycle 4 fs laser pulses can be used to induce phase-controllable along gold-silica-gold nanojunctions absence a bias voltage. However, since effect depends highly non-equilibrium state matter, its microscopic origin unclear and subject recent controversy. Here we present atomistically detailed (time-dependent Green's function) electronic transport simulations recover main experimental observations offer simple intuitive picture effect. The photoinduced are seen arise due difference effective silica-metal coupling negative positive field amplitudes induced by lasers with low temporal symmetry. These insights employed interpret related experiments, advance our ability electrons matter using lasers.