Phys.org July 12, 2022
An international team of researchers (Germany, Spain, USA – research organization) has demonstrated how the coupling between intense lasers, the motion of electrons, and their spin influences the emission of light on the ultrafast timescale. They demonstrated how changes in the electron velocity can affect the electron dynamics in Na3Bi and that this effect can sometimes be detrimental to the generation of high-order harmonics. While this material is non-magnetic, the team has shown that the spin of the electrons is important for the dynamics, as it couples to the potential felt by the electrons, which is modified by the intense applied light-field. Another finding was that the spin-orbit coupling can modify the properties of the emitted high harmonics, for example their timing. These changes contain crucial information of the internal electron dynamics. They showed that the ultrafast spin dynamics get encoded in the property emitted light. Their work serves as a platform for a better understanding of the link between spin-orbit coupling, spin current, topology, and electron dynamics in solids driven by strong fields—a crucial step towards the development of petahertz electronics based on quantum materials. It opens interesting perspectives toward using intense light to perform high-harmonic spectroscopy of spin currents, as well as magnetization dynamics…read more. Open Access TECHNICAL ARTICLEÂ
High-harmonic generation from Na3Bi. Credit: npj Computational Materials volume 8, Article number: 145 (2022)Â