Optical-induced electrical current in diamond switched by femtosecond-attosecond laser pulses by ab initio simulations

The electric current has been switched in diamond by a dual-laser field with an attosecond pulse train and a femtosecond laser, respectively serving to excite and drive electrons. The optical-induced current is simulated by the developed method based on the time-dependent density functional theory. The electric current is induced within several attoseconds with the diamond's conductivity increased by 16∼23 orders of magnitude. Our work opens the way to extending electronic signal processing from the present gigahertz domain into the exahertz domain.