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arXiv:1812.01673physics.optics

Revisiting the Photon-Drag Effect in Metal Films

Jared H. Strait, Glenn Holland, Wenqi Zhu, Cheng Zhang, Bojan R. Ilic, Amit Agrawal, Domenico Pacifici, Henri J. Lezec

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Abstract

The photon-drag effect, the rectified current in a medium induced by conservation of momentum of absorbed or redirected light, is a unique probe of the detailed mechanisms underlying radiation pressure. We revisit this effect in gold, a canonical Drude metal. We discover that the signal for p-polarized illumination in ambient air is affected in both sign and magnitude by adsorbed molecules, opening previous measurements for reinterpretation. Further, we show that the intrinsic sign of the photon-drag effect is contrary to the prevailing intuitive model of direct momentum transfer to free electrons.

arXiv comments
12 pages, 4 figures
Journal reference
Phys. Rev. Lett. 123, 053903 (2019)
DOI
doi:10.1103/PhysRevLett.123.053903
Subjects
physics.opticsOptics

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  1. Light Seems to Pull Electrons Backward 1 comment

    • https://arxiv.org/pdf/1812.01673.pdf > The photon-drag effect, the rectified current in a medium induced by conservation of momentum of absorbed or redirected light, is a unique probe of the detailed mechanisms underlying radiation pressure. We revisit this effect in gold, a…

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