Attosecond Charge-transfer Dynamics in Condensed Matter

The transfer of electronic population from valence to conduction band states in a band-gap material is the basis of modern electronics. Now attosecond spectroscopy can track this and other relevant electronic processes inside solid-state materials in real-time and provide a detailed into the energy exchange dynamics between light and matter 1. This talk will discuss how the excitation of electrons across the band-gap of semiconductors by few-cycle laser pulses occurs as a lasting population transfer in synchrony with the laser electric field oscillations 2, while a strong, yet fully reversible nonlinear polarization without lasting population transfer 3 is observed when transparent dielectrics are subjected to similar excitation pulses.