Related papers: Ultrafast optical Faraday effect in transparent so…
We describe how the observed polarization properties of an astronomical object are related to its intrinsic polarization properties and the finite temporal and spectral resolutions of the observing device. Moreover, we discuss the effect…
The effect of gravitational Faraday rotation was predicted in the 1950s, but there is currently no practical method for measuring this effect. Measuring this effect is important because it will provide new evidence for correctness of…
Faraday isolators are usually limited to Faraday materials with strong Verdet constants. We present a method to reach the 45{\deg} polarization rotation angle needed for optical isolators with materials exhibiting a weak Faraday effect. The…
We try to go beyond the geometrical optics approximation, by showing that a massless polarized particle allows a wide class of non minimal interactions with an arbitrary gravitational field. One specific example of a curvature-dependent…
Magnetic recording using circularly polarized femto-second laser pulses is an emerging technology that would allow write speeds much faster than existing field driven methods. However, the mechanism that drives the magnetization switching…
Recently developed circularly polarized X-ray light sources can probe ultrafast chiral electronic and nuclear dynamics through spatially localized resonant core transitions. We present simulations of time-resolved circular dichroism (TRCD)…
Tunneling ionization of an atom in ultrashort laser pulses is considered. When the driving laser pulse is switched-on and -off with a steep slope, the photoelectron momentum distribution (PMD) shows an edge-effect because of the…
Electromagnetically induced transparency, as a quantum interference effect to eliminate optical absorption in an opaque medium, has found extensive applications in slow light generation, optical storage, frequency conversion, optical…
Optical activity, like Faraday effect, is a rotation of the plane of polarization of propagating light in a medium and can be attributed to different sources with distinct signatures. In this note we discuss the effect of optical activity…
We report the observation of the electro-optic effect in Bi$_2$Se$_3$ crystals induced by an intense single-cycle terahertz pulse. The effect reveals itself as a transient change of the polarization state of a femtosecond laser pulse…
Achromatic flying-focus enables programmable control of intensity peak velocity, with applications in ultrafast optics. However, spatiotemporal coupling inherently elongates ultrashort pulses by introducing frequency-dependent focusing and…
We show that it is possible to generate continuous-wave fields and pulses of polarization squeezed light by sending classical, linearly polarized laser light twice through an atomic sample which causes an optical Faraday rotation of the…
Faraday rotation of a laser field induced by a single atom is demonstrated by tightly focussing a linearly polarized laser beam onto a laser-cooled ion held in a harmonic Paul trap. The polarization rotation signal is further used to…
Chirality is ubiquitous in nature and of fundamental importance in science. The present work focuses on understanding the conditions required to modify the chirality during ultrafast electronic motion by bringing enantiomers…
We suggest an experiment to observe vacuum birefringence induced by intense laser fields. A high-intensity laser pulse is focused to ultra-relativistic intensity and polarizes the vacuum which then acts like a birefringent medium. The…
We predict that a metal nanofilm subjected to an ultrashort (single oscillation) optical pulse of a high field amplitude $\sim 3 \mathrm{V/\AA}$ at normal incidence undergoes an ultrafast (at subcycle times $\lesssim 1 \mathrm{fs}$)…
We present a microscopic calculation of the inverse Faraday effect in metals. We derive a static local magnetic moment induced on the application of high-frequency light, using the Eilenberger formulation of quasiclassical theory. We…
All-optical pump-probe detection of magnetization precession has been performed for ferromagnetic EuO thin films at 10 K. We demonstrate that the circularly-polarized light can be used to control the magnetization precession on an ultrafast…
We propose a novel technique that promises hope of being the first to directly detect a polarization in the quantum electrodynamic (QED) vacuum. The technique is based upon the use of ultra-short pulses of light circulating in low…
The ability to manipulate ferroelectrics at ultrafast speeds has long been an elusive target for materials research. Coherently exciting the ferroelectric mode with ultrashort optical pulses holds the promise to switch the ferroelectric…