Nanostructures in structured light: Photoinduced spin and orbital electron dynamics

Abstract

We study the coupled spin and orbital dynamics of electrons in one- and two-dimensional quantum dots driven by few cycle pulses of polarization-structured terahertz vector fields. Emphasis is put on the use of radially and azimuthally polarized, cylindrical vector beams for spin-flip processes caused by transitions between electronic states characterized by spin-position entanglement and corresponding injection of spin currents. We demonstrated how different topologies of the beams result in different selection rules and corresponding spin and position dynamics. These results point to new possibilities for spatiotemporal control of the coupled spin and orbital electron dynamics via polarization shaping of the driving electromagnetic pulse.