Speaker: Rui Silva
Affiliation: ICMM
Date: Tuesday, 22 October 2024 at 12:00
Location: Seminar Room, Serrano 113b
The recent discovery of high harmonic generation in solids [1], merging the fields of strong field and condensed
matter physics, opened the door for the direct observation of Bloch oscillations [1], all-optical reconstruction of the
band structure [2] and direct observation of the influence of the Berry curvature in the optical response [3]. In this
work, we will focus on high harmonic generation in strongly correlated and topological materials. First, I will show
how high harmonic spectroscopy can be used to induce and time resolve insulator-to-metal transitions in strongly
correlated materials, using the Hubbard model [4]. I will further demonstrate how high harmonic spectroscopy
can be used to identify topological phases of matter and how the Berry curvature leaves its fingerprint in the
nonlinear optical response of the material [5]. Using a combination of w-2w counter-rotating strong circular fields,
we demonstrate that we are able to induce valley polarization in hexagonal 2D materials and use HHG spectroscopy
to read the valley polarization [6]. At last, I will show how the use of Wannier orbitals can be useful in the calculation
of the nonlinear optical response of solids [7].