Attosecond nonlinear polarization and light–matter energy transfer in solids
Open accessAbstract
Electric-field-induced charge separation (polarization) is the most fundamental manifestation of the interaction of light with matter and a phenomenon of great technological relevance. Nonlinear optical polarization produces coherent radiation in spectral ranges inaccessible by lasers and constitutes the key to ultimate-speed signal manipulation. Terahertz techniques have provided experimental access to this important observable up to frequencies of several terahertz. Here we demonstrate that attosecond metrology extends the resolution to petahertz frequencies of visible light. Attosecond polarization spectroscopy allows measurement of the response of the electronic system of silica to strong (more than one volt per ångström) few-cycle optical (about 750 nanometres) fields. Our proof-of-concept study provides time-resolved insight into the attosecond nonlinear polarization and the light-matter energy transfer dynamics behind the optical Kerr effect and multi-photon absorption. Timing the nonlinear polarization relative to the driving laser electric field with sub-30-attosecond accuracy yields direct quantitative access to both the reversible and irreversible energy exchange between visible-infrared light and electrons. Quantitative determination of dissipation within a signal manipulation cycle of only a few femtoseconds duration (by measurement and ab initio calculation) reveals the feasibility of dielectric optical switching at clock rates above 100 terahertz. The observed sub-femtosecond rise of energy transfer from the field to the material (for a peak electric field strength exceeding 2.5 volts per ångström) in turn indicates the viability of petahertz-bandwidth metrology with a solid-state device.
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More recent experiments have addressed correlated two-electron dynamics, attosecond to few-femtosecond charge migration in molecules, and electric field-induced charge separation in solids.
“More recent experiments have addressed correlated two-electron dynamics [169], attosecond to few-femtosecond charge migration in molecules [170, 171] and electric field-induced charge separation in solids [172].”
From Roadmap of ultrafast x-ray atomic and molecular physics (2018) · cites this paper as [172]
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Roadmap of ultrafast x-ray atomic and molecular physics
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- Authors
- Sommer, A., Bothschafter, E. M., Sato, S. A., Jakubeit, C., Latka, T., Razskazovskaya, O., Fattahi, H., Jobst, M., Schweinberger, W., Shirvanyan, V., Yakovlev, V. S., Kienberger, R., Yabana, K., Karpowicz, N., Schultze, M., & Krausz, F.
- Affiliations
- Max Planck Institute of Quantum Optics (DE)
- University of Tsukuba (JP)
- Georgia State University (US)
- Technical University of Munich (DE)
- ORCID
- Venue
- Nature
- Published
- 2016-05-23
- Volume
- 534
- Issue
- 7605
- Pages
- 86-90
- ISSN
- 0028-0836 (ISSN-L)
- 1476-4687
- OpenAlex
- W2396761328
- Cited by
- 252
- References
- 28
- Citations by year
- 2026: 14 · 2025: 25 · 2024: 23 · 2023: 18 · 2022: 33 · 2021: 14 · 2020: 26 · 2019: 26 · 2018: 38 · 2017: 29 · 2016: 6
- FWCI
- 15.60
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- green
- mediatum.ub.tum.de
- Licence
- other-oa
- www.springer.com/tdm (tdm)
- Locations
- Nature (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- RePEc: Research Papers in Economics (submittedVersion)
- DORA PSI (Paul Scherrer Institute) (submittedVersion)
- Max Planck Digital Library (submittedVersion)
- The HKU Scholars Hub (University of Hong Kong) (submittedVersion)
- mediaTUM (Technical University of Munich) (submittedVersion, other-oa)
- MPG.PuRe (Max Planck Society) (submittedVersion)
- Funders
- Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (14J01511, 15H03674)
- Topics
- Physical Sciences › Physics and Astronomy › Atomic and Molecular Physics, and Optics › Laser-Matter Interactions and Applications
- Physical Sciences › Engineering › Electrical and Electronic Engineering › Terahertz technology and applications
- Physical Sciences › Engineering › Computational Mechanics › Laser Material Processing Techniques
- Keywords
- silica, optical Kerr effect, multiphoton absorption, electric field-induced polarization, terahertz signal processing, attosecond spectroscopy
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