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Coherent Electron Zitterbewegung

Zitterbewegung is a striking consequence of relativistic quantum mechanics which predicts that free Dirac electrons exhibit a rapid trembling motion even in the absence of external forces. The trembling motion of an electron results from the interference between the positive and the negative-energy solutions of the Dirac equation, separated by one MeV, leading to oscillations at extremely high frequencies which are out of reach experimentally. Recently, it was shown theoretically that electrons in III-V semiconductors are governed by similar equations in the presence of spin-orbit coupling. The small energy splittings up to meV result in Zitterbewegung at much smaller frequencies which should be experimentally accessible as an AC current. Here, we demonstrate the Zitterbewegung of electrons in a solid. We show that coherent electron Zitterbewegung can be triggered by initializing an ensemble of electrons in the same spin states in strained n-InGaAs and is probed as an AC current at GHz frequencies. Its amplitude is shown to increase linearly with both the spin-orbit coupling strength and the Larmor frequency of the external magnetic field. The latter dependence is the hallmark of the dynamical generation mechanism of the oscillatory motion of the Zitterbewegung. Our results demonstrate that relativistic quantum mechanics can be studied in a rather simple solid state system at moderate temperatures. Furthermore, the large amplitude of the AC current at high precession frequencies enables ultra-fast spin sensitive electric read-out in solids.