Carrier heating and high-order harmonics generation in doped graphene by a strong ac electric field

Abstract: The nonlinear response of electrons (holes) in doped graphene on ac pumping is considered theoretically for the frequency region above the energy relaxation rate but below the momentum and carrier-carrier scattering rates. Temporally-dependent heating of electrons by a strong ac field, which is described within the energy balance approach, leads to an effective generation of high-order harmonics. The efficiency of up-conversion of the 1 mm radiation into the third harmonic by a single-layer graphene is about 10^{-7} at pumping level ~100 kW/cm^2, room temperature, and concentration ~5 x 10^{11} cm^{-2}.