Attosecond-fast internal photoemission – accepted in Nature Photonics
Recently, extremely fast charge dynamics have been revealed in photoemission from atoms or metals to vacuum, and inside of individual molecules, with charge transfer times in the 100-attosecond time range. In contrast, in purely solid state-based interfaces, the fastest charge transfer time reported so far is almost two orders of magnitudes slower. Our work shows that a surprisingly simple and well-known 2D–3D material interface – graphene on silicon carbide – enables attosecond charge transfer timescales over a solid-solid interface. We thus extend the concepts of ultrafast photoemission from a metal to vacuum to a solid state interface. Our manuscript hence represents a major step in the fast growing interdisciplinary field of ultrafast physics and optoelectronics by demonstrating attosecond charge transfer over a highly relevant solid-solid interface, a Schottky junction.