Abstract
The conversion of light into free electron–hole pairs constitutes the key process in the fields of photodetection and photovoltaics. The efficiency of this process depends on the competition of different relaxation pathways and can be greatly enhanced when photoexcited carriers do not lose energy as heat, but instead transfer their excess energy into the production of additional electron–hole pairs through carrier–carrier scattering processes. Here we use optical pump–terahertz probe measurements to probe different pathways contributing to the ultrafast energy relaxation of photoexcited carriers. Our results indicate that carrier–carrier scattering is highly efficient, prevailing over optical-phonon emission in a wide range of photon wavelengths and leading to the production of secondary hot electrons originating from the conduction band. As hot electrons in graphene can drive currents, multiple hot-carrier generation makes graphene a promising material for highly efficient broadband extraction of light energy into electronic degrees of freedom, enabling high-efficiency optoelectronic applications.
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Acknowledgements
We acknowledge financial support from an NWO Rubicon grant (K.J.T.), the NSS programme, Singapore (J.C.W.S.), Office of Naval Research Grant No. N00014-09-1-0724 (L.S.L.), and Fundacio Cellex Barcelona and ERC Career integration grant GRANOP (F.H.L.K.). We thank J. Versluis for technical assistance.
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K.J.T., F.H.L.K. and M.B. conceived the experiment; K.J.T. and S.A.J. performed the experiment; K.J.T., J.C.W.S., L.S.L. and F.H.L.K. analysed and interpreted the data; J.C.W.S. and L.S.L. developed the theoretical model; A.C., A.P. and A.Z.E. prepared the sample; K.J.T., J.C.W.S., S.A.J., M.B., L.S.L. and F.H.L.K. wrote the paper.
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Tielrooij, K., Song, J., Jensen, S. et al. Photoexcitation cascade and multiple hot-carrier generation in graphene. Nature Phys 9, 248–252 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1038/nphys2564
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/nphys2564
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