ABSTRACT
Dragging of light by moving media was predicted by Fresnel1 and verified by Fizeau's celebrated experiments2 with flowing water. This momentous discovery is among the experimental cornerstones of Einstein's special relativity theory and is well understood3,4 in the context of relativistic kinematics. By contrast, experiments on dragging photons by an electron flow in solids are riddled with inconsistencies and have so far eluded agreement with the theory5-7. Here we report on the electron flow dragging surface plasmon polaritons8,9 (SPPs): hybrid quasiparticles of infrared photons and electrons in graphene. The drag is visualized directly through infrared nano-imaging of propagating plasmonic waves in the presence of a high-density current. The polaritons in graphene shorten their wavelength when propagating against the drifting carriers. Unlike the Fizeau effect for light, the SPP drag by electrical currents defies explanation by simple kinematics and is linked to the nonlinear electrodynamics of Dirac electrons in graphene. The observed plasmonic Fizeau drag enables breaking of time-reversal symmetry and reciprocity10 at infrared frequencies without resorting to magnetic fields11,12 or chiral optical pumping13,14. The Fizeau drag also provides a tool with which to study interactions and nonequilibrium effects in electron liquids.
ABSTRACT
Pump-probe nano-optical experiments were used to study the light-induced insulator to metal transition (IMT) in thin films of vanadium dioxide (VO_{2}), a prototypical correlated electron system. We show that inhomogeneous optical contrast is prompted by spatially uniform photoexcitation, indicating an inhomogeneous photosusceptibility of VO_{2}. We locally characterize temperature and time dependent variations of the photoexcitation threshold necessary to induce the IMT on picosecond timescales with hundred nanometer spatial resolution. We separately measure the critical temperature T_{L}, where the IMT onsets and the local transient electronic nano-optical contrast at the nanoscale. Our data reveal variations in the photosusceptibility of VO_{2} within nanoscopic regions characterized by the same critical temperature T_{L} where metallic domains can first nucleate.