Microscopic electron dynamics in nonlinear optical response of solids
Abstract
We investigate the microscopic properties of the nonlinear optical response of crystalline solids within Floquet theory, and demonstrate that optically-induced microscopic charge distributions display complex spatial structure and nontrivial properties. Their spatial symmetry and temporal behavior are governed by crystal symmetries. We find that even when a macroscopic optical response of a crystal is forbidden, the microscopic optical response can, in fact, be nonzero. In such a case, the optically-induced charge redistribution can be considerable, even though the corresponding Fourier component of the time-dependent dipole moment per unit cell vanishes. We develop a method that makes it possible to completely reconstruct the microscopic optically-induced charge distributions by means of subcycle-resolved x-ray-optical wave mixing. We also show how, within this framework, the direction of the instantaneous microscopic optically-induced electron current flow can be revealed.
Cite
@article{arxiv.2009.07527,
title = {Microscopic electron dynamics in nonlinear optical response of solids},
author = {Daria Popova-Gorelova and Vladislav Guskov and Robin Santra},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2009.07527},
year = {2020}
}
Comments
This version has been significantly revised. The old version of the manuscript is now divided in two. The second manuscript titled "Atomic-scale imaging of laser-driven electron dynamics in solids using subcycle-resolved x-ray-optical wave mixing" is submitted to arxiv