Optical phase control of ultrafast single-electron nanocurrents

By accessing the nonperturbative strong-field regime, light-matter interaction is governed by the electric field transient of light as opposed to multiphoton effects. In our experiments, we illuminate a circuit with a nanoscale open junction (Fig. 1(a)) with intense ultrashort pulses at high repetition rate. With this setup, we are able to coherently drive electronic currents at optical frequencies and beyond [1].