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Electric current induced by microwave Stark effect of electrons on liquid helium

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Abstract

We propose a frequency-mixed effect of terahertz (THz) and gigahertz (GHz) electromagnetic waves in the cryogenic system of electrons floating on liquid helium surface. The THz wave is near-resonant with the transition frequency between the lowest two levels of surface state electrons. The GHz wave does not excite the transitions but generates a GHz-varying Stark effect with the symmetry-breaking eigenstates of electrons on liquid helium. We show an effective coupling between the inputting THz and GHz waves, which appears at the critical point that the detuning between electrons and THz wave is equal to the frequency of GHz wave. By this coupling, the THz and GHz waves cooperatively excite electrons and generate the low-frequency ac currents along the perpendicular direction of liquid helium surface to be experimentally detected by the image-charge approach (Phys Rev Lett 123:086801, 2019). This offers an alternative approach for THz detections.

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Data Availability Statement

The data generated or analyzed during this study are included in this published article.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China, Grants No. 12047576, and No. 11974290.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Physics Science and Technology, Southwest Jiaotong University, Chengdu, 610031, China

    T. Wang & M. Zhang

  2. School of Information Science and Technology, Southwest Jiaotong University, Chengdu, 610031, China

    L. F. Wei

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  1. T. Wang
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  2. M. Zhang
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  3. L. F. Wei
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Correspondence to M. Zhang.

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Wang, T., Zhang, M. & Wei, L.F. Electric current induced by microwave Stark effect of electrons on liquid helium. Eur. Phys. J. Plus 137, 688 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1140/epjp/s13360-022-02852-y

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1140/epjp/s13360-022-02852-y

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