CC BY
14THz-I-4
Advanced control of complex matter by high-field terahertz pulses
F. Giorgianni1
1Paul Scherrer Institut, Research with Neutrons andMuons, Villigen PSI, Switzerland
Terahertz interaction with matter has become one of the hottest topics in ultrafast community. Indeed, intense terahertz pulses have recently proved to be a pivotal tool to manipulate and control the properties of complex condensed matter systems with strongly correlated electrons [1]. In these materials, electronic correlations entangled with other degrees of freedom may induce new electronic phases and unconventional physical phenomena such as superconductivity in cuprates, giant magnetoresistance and insulating-to-metal transition (IMT).
Vanadium sesquioxide (V2O3) is considered as a classical prototype of materials exhibiting IMTs, thus attracting broad attention in fundamental and applied physics. The IMT in V2O3 is mainly driven by electronic correlations, described by the Mott physics, concomitant with a lattice distortion [2].
When an IMT is driven by conventional stimuli such as temperature, pressure, fast voltage and deposition of optical energy with near infrared laser, the electronic and lattice contributions could not be adequately disentangled. On the other hand a pure electronic process may open a promising avenue towards the next generation of faster and more energy-efficient electronic devices. Using intense THz pulses, we reveal the emergence of an ultrafast electric-field driven metallization of V2O3 by quantum tunneling [3]. We show that strong THz electric field, non-resonant with the phonon modes, are capable to induce a sub-picosecond electronic switching faster than lattice transition.A second example of complex electronic phase control by THz field is the superconductivity. Recent experiments on superconductors have shown that low-energy collectives mode can be manipulate by intense THz light pulses through nonlinear processes [4,5].
Intense THz pulse is an effective approach to control complex electronic phases, with promising pathways towards novel nonlinear processes hindered to conventional stimuli.
References
[1] D. Nicoletti, and A. Cavalleri, Nonlinear light-matter interaction at terahertz frequencies, Advances in Optics and Photonics 8, 401 (2016).
[2] M. M. Qazilbash, et al., Electrodynamics of the vanadium oxides VO2 and V2O3, Physical Review B, 77, 115121 (2008).
[3] F. Giorgianni, J. Sakai, and S. Lupi, Overcoming the thermal regime for the electric-field driven Mott transition in vanadium sesquioxide, Nature Communications 10, 1159 (2019).
[4] R. Matsunaga, et al. Light-induced collective pseudospin precession resonating with Higgs mode in a superconductor. Science 345, 1145 (2014).
[5] F. Giorgianni, et al. Leggett mode controlled by light pulses. Nature Physics 11 (2019).
