All-optical control of photon drag current in graphene

Strong and broadband light absorption in graphene allows one to achieve high carrier densities essential for observation of nonlinear optical phenomena making graphene a unique playground for studying many-body effects. Being of strong fundamental importance, these effects also open a wide range of opportunities in photonics and optoelectronics. Here, we make use of strong photon-drag effect to generate and optically manipulate ultrafast photocurrents in graphene at room temperature. In contrast to the recent reports on injection of photocurrents in graphene due to external or built-in electric field and by quantum interference, we force the massless charge carriers to move via direct transfer of linear momentum from photons of incident laser beam to excited electrons in unbiased sample. Direction and amplitude of the drag-current induced in graphene are determined by polarization, incidence angle and intensity of the obliquely incident laser beam. We also demonstrate that the irradiation of graphene with two laser beams of the same wavelength offers an opportunity to manipulate the photocurrents in time domain.