Physics Letters A 374 (2010) 12661269

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Physics Letters A
www.elsevier.com/locate/pla
Hot-electron transport in graphene driven by intense terahertz elds
W.S. Bao, S.Y. Liu

, X.L. Lei
Department of Physics, Shanghai Jiaotong University, 800 Dongchuan Road, Shanghai 200240, China
a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t
Article history:
Received 16 December 2009
Accepted 26 December 2009
Available online 7 January 2010
Communicated by V.M. Agranovich
Keywords:
Graphene
Terahertz eld
Nonlinear effect
We investigate transport properties of graphene driven by intense terahertz (THz) elds, considering
impurity, acoustic-phonon and optical phonon scatterings. The time evolutions of drift velocity and
electron temperature are analyzed and the phase shift and distortion of drift velocity are demonstrated.
We also examine the terahertz photoconductivity, nding that the suppression of linear dc mobility is
greatly enhanced with decreasing frequency of the radiation.
2010 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
1. Introduction
Graphene, a gapless and massless two-dimensional (2D) mate-
rial [15], possesses many device-friendly features and has great
potential applications in electronics [6]. However, the absorption
coecient of graphene is generally less than 3% due to the van-
ishing of density state near Fermi surface and small interband
transition amplitude [79]. This greatly restricts the application of
graphene in photonics and optoelectronics. To design and fabri-
cate novel graphene-based devices, it is important to clarify the
properties of non-equilibrium carriers in graphene under the in-
uence of different kinds of electromagnetic radiations. It is noted
that, motivated by the universal conductance at zero-gate voltage,
the optical conductivity for weak ac (or THz) eld in graphene
has been investigated theoretically [1029]. Recently, the experi-
mental observation on ultrafast relaxation process of carriers cre-
ated by near-infrared optical pulse through interband processes
has also been carried out in Refs. [30,31]. Considering the carrier-
phonon and carrier-impurity scatterings, as well as the intercarrier
Coulomb scattering, this phenomenon has been studied theoreti-
cally by Balev et al. [32], and by Bistritzer and MacDonald [33].
Theoretically, the photoconductivity of carriers in graphene excited
through interband process has also been investigated [34].
In present Letter, we investigate the transport properties of
doped single-layer graphene driven by intense terahertz (THz)
electric eld through intraband excitation process, considering im-
purity, acoustic-phonon, and optic-phonon scatterings. The steady-
state time evolutions of the drift velocity and electron tempera-
ture are carried out, and the dependencies of photoconductivity
*
Corresponding author. Tel./fax: +86 21 62932827.
E-mail address: liusy@sjtu.edu.cn (S.Y. Liu).
on the strength and frequency of terahertz eld are demonstrated.
We nd that with an increase of strength of terahertz eld, the
photoconductivity decreases rapidly. This implies that the doped
graphene can be used as a basic material for THz-irradiation de-
tection.
2. Theoretical consideration
We consider a single-layer graphene in the xy plane driven
by an in-plane THz electric eld E
ac
(t) of angular frequency ,
E
ac
(t) = E
s
sint. For the determination of photoconductivity, a
small uniform dc eld, E
0
, is also applied.
In a graphene system, the wave function of an electron with
momentum k = (k
x
, k
y
) = (k cos
k
, k sin
k
) [k = |k| is the magni-
tude of k and
k
= arctan(k
y
/k
x
) is its polar angle] can be writ-
ten as |k =
1

2
_
1
e
i
k
_
and its energy dispersion takes the form
(k) = hv
F
|k| = hv
F
k, with v
F
the Fermi velocity [35].
In the framework of balance equation approach [36], the trans-
port state of electrons in an arbitrary energy band can be de-
scribed by lattice momentum shift p
d
, electron temperature T
e
,
and chemical potential , which are governed by the force- and
energy-balance equations of the form:
dv
d
dt
= e
_
E
ac
(t) + E
0
_
K+a
i
+a
p
, (1)
d
e
dt
= e
_
E
ac
(t) + E
0
_
v
d
w, (2)
in which the expressions for the electron drift velocity v
d
=
1
h

k
(k), average electron energy
e
= (k) and ensemble-
averaged inverse effective-mass tensor K =
1
h
2

k

k
(k) are
derived in Ref. [36]. In these expressions, . . . =
g
s
g
v
N

k
f ((k), T
e
) . . . stands for the weighted summation over k
0375-9601/$ see front matter 2010 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.physleta.2009.12.076
W.S. Bao et al. / Physics Letters A 374 (2010) 12661269 1267
Fig. 1. (Color online.) Steady-state time evolutions of drift velocity v
d
and electron temperature T
e
in graphene driven by three THz elds of different frequencies and
amplitudes in the case of zero dc bias E
0
=0.
space, where f ((k), T
e
) = {exp[((k) )/(k
B
T
e
)] +1}
1
[(k)
(k p
d
)] is the displaced Fermi distribution function of electric
eld driven electrons, and g
s
= 2 and g
v
= 2 are the spin and the
valley degeneracy indices, respectively. In Eq. (1) a
i
and a
p
are, re-
spectively, the damping accelerations due to impurity and phonon
scatterings.
In a 2D gated graphene, the main electron-impurity scattering
comes from the ionized dopants within a narrow space charge
layer with a total area density n
i
at a distance d from the inter-
face in the substrate side. We describe it by a potential u(q) =
v(q, d)/(q), in which v(q, d) = e
2
exp(qd)/(2
0
q) is the un-
screened electron-impurity potential and (q) is the 2D static di-
electric screening function of graphene given in [37]. Then the
damping accelerations due to impurity scattering, a
i
, is given
by [36]
a
i
=
g
s
g
v
n
i
N h

k,q

u(q)

g(k, q)

_
v(k +q) v(k)
_

_
(k +q) (k)
_

_
f
_
(k), T
e
_
f
_
(k +q), T
e
__
, (3)
where g(k, q) = k +q|k =
1
2
(1 +e
i(
k

k+q
)
) is the form factor.
The damping accelerations due to electronphonon scattering,
a
p
, can be written as [36]
a
p
=
2g
s
g
v

N h

k,q,

M(q, )

g(k, q)

_
v(k +q) v(k)
_

_
(k +q) (k) + h
q,
_

_
f
_
(k), T
e
_
f
_
(k +q), T
e
__

_
n
_
h
q,
k
B
T
_
n
_
(k) (k +q)
k
B
T
e
__
, (4)
and w is the electron energy-dissipation rate, whose expression
can be obtained from that of a
p
by replacing [v(k + q) v(k)]
factor with h
q,
, the energy of -th branch phonon having
wave vector q. In Eq. (4), T is the lattice temperature and n(x) =
(e
x
1)
1
is the Bose function. In graphene, we consider the defor-
mation potential interactions between electrons and longitudinal
acoustic and optical phonons. The corresponding scattering ma-
trix takes the form |M(q, )|
2
= D
2
hQ
2

/(2A
m

q,
), with D as
the deformation-potential coupling constant,
m
as the graphene
mass density, and A as the area of the sample [38,39]. Q

de-
pends on the mode of phonons: Q

= q for acoustic phonons and

Q

=2/a for optical phonons (a is the lattice constant).

3. Numerical results
We have performed a numerical calculation to study the time-
dependent transport properties of graphene under the inuence of
a linearly polarized intense THz radiation. The steady-state time
evolutions of quantities, p
d
, T
e
, and , are obtained by solv-
ing Eqs. (1) and (2) with fourth-order RungeKutta method. In
the calculation, the longitudinal optical (LO) phonon frequency,

q,LO
=
LO
, is taken to be 298.3 THz [40], and the longitudinal
acoustic (LA) phonon frequency as
q,LA
= v
sl
q, with longitudinal
sound velocity v
sl
= 2.0 10
4
m/s. The other parameters used in
calculation are: a = 2.45 , D = 19.0 eV,
m
= 7.6 10
7
kg/m
2
,
= 2.5, and v
F
= 1.1 10
6
m/s. The distance of the impurity
layer from electrons is assumed d = 0.1 nm, and the impurity den-
sity n
i
is determined by the mobility at zero temperature, which is
assumed to be 10 m
2
/Vs. The results for a typical electron density
N = 1.5 10
16
m
2
are shown in Figs. 14.
Fig. 1 presents one cycle of the steady time-dependent response
of drift velocity v
d
and electron temperature T
e
for the system
driven by three THz elds of different frequencies (periods) and
amplitudes in the case of zero dc bias E
0
=0: (a) /2 = 0.2 THz
with E
s
=2.5 kV/cm, (b) /2 = 0.7 THz with E
s
=5 kV/cm and
(c) /2 = 1.5 THz with E
s
=10 kV/cm. We can see the following
features from this gure: (1) The velocity oscillates at a funda-
mental frequency of the driving electric eld, while the electron
temperature oscillates at a fundamental frequency of 2. (2) The
average electron temperature T
av
=

2
_
2/
0
T
e
dt is signicantly
higher than the lattice temperature. (3) To have a similar ampli-
tude of the velocity oscillation, much larger strength of the driving
ac eld is needed for higher frequency (e.g. /2 = 1.5 THz) than
for lower frequency (e.g. /2 = 0.2 THz). In these three cases
shown in the gure, the amplitudes of the velocity oscillations
are roughly the same and the average electron temperature T
av
turns out to be similar. (4) The maximum amplitudes of the elec-
tron temperature oscillation, T
M
T
e
|
max
T
e
|
min
, on the other
hand, are strongly dependent on the frequency of the driving eld
(from 113.5 K for /2 = 0.2 THz, 43.5 K for /2 = 0.7 THz, to
19.9 K for /2 = 1.5 THz). The rapid decrease of T
M
with in-
creasing frequency indicates that the electron temperature cannot
1268 W.S. Bao et al. / Physics Letters A 374 (2010) 12661269
Fig. 2. (Color online.) The frequency dependence of Fourier coecients of the
steady-state drift velocity v
d
in graphene driven by THz elds of amplitude E
s
=
5 kV/cm at T = 300 K.
follow the rapid oscillation of the applied eld. When the fre-
quency of the driven eld becomes high, the electron temperature
essentially keeps unchanged at a value determined by the strength
and frequency of the driving eld. (5) Due to much larger uctu-
ating hot-electron effect (large T
M
) the oscillatory drift velocity
v
d
exhibits stronger distortion at lower frequency than at higher
frequency even though the velocity amplitudes are essentially the
same.
We can also see from Fig. 1 that, at low frequency, the drift
velocity vibrates almost in-phase with the THz eld E
ac
(t) =
E
s
sint, while it oscillates with a phase shift of /2 with re-
spect to E
ac
(t) at high frequency. To analyze the effect of THz eld
frequency on the phase shift and distortion of v
d
(t), we further
perform a Fourier expansion for the periodic drift-velocity func-
tion by v
d
(t) = v
0
+

n=1
[v
ns
sin(nt) + v
nc
cos(nt)]. In the case
of zero dc eld, E
0
= 0, v
0
and all the even-order Fourier coe-
cients vanish. The dominant Fourier coecients, v
1s
, v
3s
, v
1c
, and
v
3c
are plotted in Fig. 2 as functions of the frequency of the ac
eld with xed amplitude E
s
= 5 kV/cm. We see that, with in-
crease of the frequency of ac eld, the magnitude of v
1s
decreases
from a nite value down to almost zero, while v
1c
increases and
reaches a maximum before slightly falling to a somewhat lower -
nite value. Obviously, v
1s
component dominates at low frequency
and v
1c
component dominates at high frequency, clearly showing
the frequency dependence of phase shift of v
d
(t) from E
ac
(t). Note
that v
3s
and v
3c
components in the Fourier expansion of v
d
(t) are
quite remarkable for /2 0.7 THz, reecting a large distortion
of the drift velocity response. This indicates that graphene may be
useful in serving as a frequency tripling generator for THz waves.
Fig. 3 presents the average electron temperature T
av
in the
steady time-dependent response, as a function of the amplitude
E
s
of the driving THz electric elds of three different frequencies
/2 = 0.2, 0.8 and 1.5 THz in the case of zero dc bias E
0
= 0
at lattice temperature T = 300 K. At given amplitude E
s
lower fre-
quency THz eld has a much stronger ability to heat electrons than
higher frequency eld.
Finally, we investigate the THz photoconductance, i.e. the effect
of an intense THz eld on the linear dc conductivity (mobility)
by assuming both a small detecting dc bias E
0
and an intense
THz eld E
ac
(t) = E
s
sint are applied along the same direction
in single-sheet graphene system. The linear dc mobility, dened
as
dc
= v
0
/E
0
, is evaluated by performing the time average of
the steady-state drift-velocity response v
d
(t) in one period. We
Fig. 3. (Color online.) The average electron temperature T
av
in the steady-state re-
sponse versus the amplitude E
s
of driving THz elds of three different frequencies
/2 = 0.2, 0.8 and 1.5 THz at T =300 K in the case of zero dc eld E
0
=0.
Fig. 4. (Color online.) The calculated reduced linear dc mobility
dc
(E
s
)/
dc
(0) is
shown as a function of the amplitude E
s
of the THz eld at three different frequen-
cies, /2 = 0.2, 0.8 and 1.5 THz. The temperature T = 300 K.
use a value of E
0
in the range around 50 V/cm to ensure the
calculating accuracy and to keep the system close to the ohmic
conduction regime when E
s
= 0, which gives
dc
(0), linear dc mo-
bility without THz irradiation. The calculated linear dc mobility

dc
(E
s
) subject to a THz eld of amplitude E
s
, reduced by
dc
(0),
is plotted in Fig. 4 at three different frequencies: /2 = 0.2, 0.8
and 1.5 THz. We see that dc mobility is always suppressed by a
THz irradiation, and at given amplitude E
s
lower frequency THz
eld has much stronger effect in suppressing the dc mobility than
higher frequency eld. Note that this decrease of
dc
with increase
of E
s
or decrease of frequency is the result of the rise of average
electron temperature, which leads to an enhancement of electron-
phonon scattering in the system.
4. Conclusion
In summary, we have investigated the transport properties in
the single-layer graphene system driven by an intense THz electric
eld. The steady-state time evolutions of electron temperature and
W.S. Bao et al. / Physics Letters A 374 (2010) 12661269 1269
drift velocity were analyzed and the frequency dependence of the
phase shift and distortion of drift velocity are demonstrated. We
have also examined the terahertz photoconductivity, nding that
the suppression of the linear dc mobility is greatly enhanced with
decreasing frequency of the radiation.
Acknowledgements
This work was supported by the projects of the National Science
Foundation of China (60876064, 10734021, and 10804073), and the
National Basic Research Program of China (2007CB310402), and by
the program for New Century Excellent Talents in University.
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