2017/08/01 by Christopher Karnetzky, Philipp Zimmermann, Karnetzky, Christopher +11
Engineering · Physics and Astronomy · #FOS: Physical sciences #Laser-Matter Interactions and Applications #Mechanical and Optical Resonators #Mesoscale and Nanoscale Physics (cond-mat.mes-hall) #Photonic and Optical Devices
paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.1708.00262
openalex publication_date 2017/08/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
To combine the advantages of ultrafast femtosecond optics with an on-chip communcation scheme, optical signals with a frequency of several hundreds of THz need to be down-converted to coherent electronic signals of GHz or less. So far, this has not been achieved because of the impedance mismatch within electronic circuits and their overall slow response-time. Here, we demonstrate that 14 fs optical pulses in the near-infrared (NIR) can drive electronic on-chip circuits with a bandwidth up to 10 THz. The corresponding electronic pulses propagate in microscopic striplines on a millimeter scale. We exploit femtosecond photoswitches based on tunneling barriers in nanoscale metal junctions to drive the pulses. The non-linear ultrafast response is based on a combination of plasmonically enhanced, multi-photon absorption and quantum tunneling, and gives rise to a field emission of ballistic electrons propagating across the nanoscale junctions. Our results pave the way towards femtosecond electronics integrated in waferscale quantum circuits.