Terahertz-assisted even harmonics generation in silicon
Yingying Ding,
Yushan Zeng,
Xieqiu Yu,
Zhe Liu,
Junyu Qian,
Yanyan Li,
Yujie Peng,
Liwei Song,
Ye Tian,
Yuxin Leng,
Ruxin Li
Affiliations
Yingying Ding
State Key Laboratory of High Field Laser Physics, Shanghai Institute of Optics and Fine Mechanics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shanghai 201800, P.R. China; Center of Materials Science and Optoelectronics Engineering, University of Chinese Academy, Beijing 100049, P.R. China
Yushan Zeng
State Key Laboratory of High Field Laser Physics, Shanghai Institute of Optics and Fine Mechanics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shanghai 201800, P.R. China; Corresponding author
Xieqiu Yu
State Key Laboratory of High Field Laser Physics, Shanghai Institute of Optics and Fine Mechanics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shanghai 201800, P.R. China; Center of Materials Science and Optoelectronics Engineering, University of Chinese Academy, Beijing 100049, P.R. China
Zhe Liu
State Key Laboratory of High Field Laser Physics, Shanghai Institute of Optics and Fine Mechanics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shanghai 201800, P.R. China
Junyu Qian
State Key Laboratory of High Field Laser Physics, Shanghai Institute of Optics and Fine Mechanics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shanghai 201800, P.R. China; Center of Materials Science and Optoelectronics Engineering, University of Chinese Academy, Beijing 100049, P.R. China
Yanyan Li
State Key Laboratory of High Field Laser Physics, Shanghai Institute of Optics and Fine Mechanics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shanghai 201800, P.R. China
Yujie Peng
State Key Laboratory of High Field Laser Physics, Shanghai Institute of Optics and Fine Mechanics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shanghai 201800, P.R. China
Liwei Song
State Key Laboratory of High Field Laser Physics, Shanghai Institute of Optics and Fine Mechanics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shanghai 201800, P.R. China; Corresponding author
Ye Tian
State Key Laboratory of High Field Laser Physics, Shanghai Institute of Optics and Fine Mechanics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shanghai 201800, P.R. China; Corresponding author
Yuxin Leng
State Key Laboratory of High Field Laser Physics, Shanghai Institute of Optics and Fine Mechanics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shanghai 201800, P.R. China
Ruxin Li
State Key Laboratory of High Field Laser Physics, Shanghai Institute of Optics and Fine Mechanics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shanghai 201800, P.R. China
Summary: When a biased electric/light field is applied to centrosymmetric crystals like silicon, the broken symmetry creates even-order harmonics radiation which can reveal key insights into the material. Recently, the second harmonic has been generated by THz-induced symmetry breaking, but the observation of higher-order radiation remains largely unexplored. Here, we demonstrate picosecond-level ultrafast, nondestructive symmetry manipulation of silicon crystal by using a 500 kV/cm intense terahertz (THz) electric field. The THz-induced fourth harmonic of the infrared probe is also observed and characterized for the first time. In addition, we find that the even-order harmonics show no dependence on the THz field direction thus it allows for sub-cycle symmetry manipulations. Our study paves the way toward ultrafast all-optical crystal symmetry control in the future high-speed electronics and photonics.
