Nonlinear terahertz field-induced carrier dynamics in photoexcited epitaxial monolayer graphene

We report nonlinear terahertz (THz) field transmission through photoexcited monolayer epitaxial graphene via differential transmission measurements enabled by optical-pump/intense-terahertz-probe (OPITP) spectroscopy. After photoexcitation of graphene, a transmission enhancement, defined by a positive differential transmission of the intense terahertz probe pulse, is observed. This is due to suppression of the graphene photoconductivity arising from an increased carrier scattering rate due to the increase in the carrier density and the extra energy from the photoexcited hot carriers. Thus, the transient enhancement in transmission increases as the optical pump fluence increased. Most interestingly, we observe that the transmission enhancement after photoexcitation decreases as the THz field strength is increased, which we attribute to the combined effects of the intense THz electric field and the optical pump fluence on the carrier scattering rate. We model the carrier dynamics in the graphene using the length gauge interaction Hamiltonian with the inclusion of short-range scattering by neutral impurities and the interaction of the carriers with optical phonons. Comparing the experimental and simulated transmission results, we extract the nonequilibrium effective lattice temperature of graphene as a function of the optical pump fluence and THz field strength.