The effect of dynamical Bloch oscillations on optical-field-induced current in a wide-gap dielectric

Abstract

We consider the motion of charge carriers in a bulk wide-gap dielectric interacting with a few-cycle laser pulse. A semiclassical model based on Bloch equations is applied to describe the emerging time-dependent macroscopic currents for laser intensities close to the damage threshold. At such laser intensities, electrons can reach edges of the first Brillouin zone even for electron–phonon scattering rates as high as those known for SiO _2 . We find that, whenever this happens, Bragg-like reflections of electron waves, also known as Bloch oscillations, affect the dependence of the charge displaced by the laser pulse on its carrier–envelope phase.