Theory of controlling band-width broadening in terahertz sideband generation in semiconductors by a direct current electric field

Abstract In a semiconductor, optically excited electron-hole pairs, driven by a strong terahertz (THz) field, can recombine to create THz sidebands in the optical spectrum. The sideband spectrum exhibits a “plateau” up to a cutoff frequency of 3.17 U p , where U p is the ponderomotive energy. In this letter, we predict that the bandwidth of this sideband spectrum plateau can be broadened by applying an additional direct-current (DC) electric field. We find that if applying a DC field of E DC =0.2 E THz (where E DC and E THz are the amplitudes of the DC field and THz field, respectively), the sideband spectrum presents three plateaus with 5.8 U p , 10.05 U p and 16 U p being the cutoff frequencies of the first, second and third plateaus, respectively. This bandwidth broadening occurs because the DC field can increase the kinetic energy that an electron-hole pair can gain from the THz field. This effect means that the bandwidth of the sideband spectrum can be controlled flexibly by changing the DC field, thereby facilitating the ultrafast electro-optical applications of THz sideband generation.