Measurement of electron-hole friction in an n-doped GaAs/AlGaAs quantum well using optical transient grating spectroscopy

Optical transient grating pumped X-ray diffraction microscopy for studying mesoscale structural dynamics

A fundamental understanding of materials’ structural dynamics, with fine spatial and temporal control, underpins future developments in electronic and quantum materials. Here, we introduce an optical transient grating pump and focused X-ray diffraction probe technique (TGXD) to examine the structural evolution of materials excited by modulated light with a precisely controlled spatial profile. This method adds spatial resolution and direct structural sensitivity to the established utility of a sinusoidal transient-grating excitation. We demonstrate TGXD using two thin-film samples: epitaxial BiFeO₃, which exhibits a photoinduced strain (structural grating) with an amplitude proportional to the optical fluence, and FeRh, which undergoes a magnetostructural phase transformation. In BiFeO₃, structural relaxation is location independent, and the strain persists on the order of microseconds, consistent with the optical excitation of long-lived charge carriers. The strain profile of the structural grating in FeRh, in comparison, deviates from the sinusoidal excitation and exhibits both higher-order spatial frequencies and a location-dependent relaxation. The focused X-ray probe provides spatial resolution within the engineered optical excitation profile, resolving the spatiotemporal flow of heat through FeRh locally heated above the phase transition temperature. TGXD successfully characterizes mesoscopic energy transport in functional materials without relying on a specific transport model.

Interacting drift-diffusion theory for photoexcited electron-hole gratings in semiconductor quantum wells

Phase-resolved transient grating spectroscopy in semiconductor quantum wells has been shown to be a powerful technique for measuring the electron-hole drag resistivity ρ(eh), which depends on the Coulomb interaction between the carriers. In this Letter we develop the interacting drift-diffusion theory, from which ρ(eh) can be determined, given the measured mobility of an electron-hole grating. From this theory we predict a crossover from a high-excitation-density regime, in which the mobility has the "normal" positive value, to a low-density regime, in which Coulomb drag dominates and the mobility becomes negative. At the crossover point, the mobility of the grating vanishes.