Optical manipulation of 40-THz coherent phonons in diamond*

Coherent optical phonons in bulk solid system play a crucial role in understanding and designing light-matter interactions. In this study, we demonstrated coherent control of the 40-THz optical phonons in a single crystal diamond using a pair of sub-10-fs laser pulses and a pump and probe protocol. We detected the coherent phonon oscillation via change in transmitted light intensity of the probe pulse with heterodyne detection. The phonon amplitude was coherently controlled by changing the delay between two pump pulses from 230 fs to 270 fs with 0.5-fs precession. The control scheme was well explained by interference between two phonon states excited by each pump pulse.