Charge-carrier transport is investigated theoretically in a high-band-gap dielectric material excited by intense ultrashort laser pulses. Simulations of fused silica reveal that the photo-Dember effect causes a ${10}^7\mathrm{V}{\mathrm{m}}^{-1}$ electric field to build up inside the material. It is shown that this electric field can induce a significant transient optical anisotropy in the dielectric, which may help reconcile earlier reports of an ultrafast onset of birefringence in highly excited fused silica. The time-dependent electric field will also lead to emission of a broadband THz pulse propagating out from and along the dielectric surface.

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• Carrier dynamics
• Permittivity
• Photocurrent
• Photoinduced effect
• Dielectrics
• Semiconductor compounds
• Wide band gap systems
• Optical absorption spectroscopy
• Terahertz sources