Bloch Oscillations of THz Acoustic Phonons in Coupled Nanocavity Structures

Nanophononic Bloch oscillations and Wannier-Stark ladders have been recently predicted to exist in specifically tailored structures formed by coupled nanocavities. Using pump-probe coherent phonon generation techniques we demonstrate that Bloch oscillations of terahertz acoustic phonons can be directly generated and probed in these complex nanostructures. In addition, by Fourier transforming the time traces we had access to the proper eigenmodes in the frequency domain, thus evidencing the related Wannier-Stark ladder. The observed Bloch oscillation dynamics are compared with simulations based on a model description of the coherent phonon generation and photoelastic detection processes.