When Bloch electrons in a solid are exposed to a strong optical field, they are coherently driven in their respective bands where they acquire a quantum phase as the imprint of the band shape. If an electron approaches an avoided crossing formed by two bands, it may be split by undergoing a Landau-Zener transition. We here employ subsequent Landau-Zener transitions to realize strong-field Bloch electron interferometry (SFBEI), allowing us to reveal band structure information. In particular, we measure the Fermi velocity (band slope) of graphene in the vicinity of the K points as (1.07±0.04) nm fs−1. We expect SFBEI for band structure retrieval to apply to a wide range of material systems and experimental conditions, making it suitable for studying transient changes in band structure with femtosecond temporal resolution at ambient conditions.
@article{arxiv.2309.16313,
title = {Strong-Field Bloch Electron Interferometry for Band Structure Retrieval},
author = {Tobias Weitz and Christian Heide and Peter Hommelhoff},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2309.16313},
year = {2024}
}