The role of crystal orientation in attosecond photoinjection dynamics in germanium

Abstract

Ultrashort light pulses can be used to manipulate electronic and optical properties of solids at extreme temporal scales, paving the way to the study of ultrafast electron dynamics. In recent years, attosecond-based spectroscopic techniques have proved to be an instrumental tool in such studies. To this end, we investigated the effects of crystal orientation on ultrafast photoinjection dynamics in germanium using attosecond transient reflectance spectroscopy (ATRS) aided by time-dependent density functional theory (TD-DFT) calculations. Our results show that ATRS is sensitive to subtle changes in the transient reflectance due to crystal orientation, although carrier photoinjection in germanium is qualitatively robust against crystal rotation, displaying similar photoinjection processes and timings at two different crystal angles.