Discovery of Terahertz Second Harmonic Generation from Lightwave Acceleration of Symmetry--Breaking Nonlinear Supercurrents

Abstract

We report terahertz (THz) second harmonic generation (SHG) in superconductors (SC) with inversion symmetric equilibrium states that forbid even-order nonlinearities. Such SHG signal is observed in single-pulse emission by periodic driving with a multi-cycle THz electric field tuned below the SC energy gap and vanishes above the SC critical temperature. We explain the microscopic physics by a dynamical symmetry breaking principle at sub-THz-cycle by using quantum kinetic modeling of the interplay between strong THz-lightwave nonlinearity and pulse propagation. The resulting non-zero integrated pulse area inside the SC drives lightwave nonlinear supercurrents due to sub--cycle Cooper pair acceleration, in contrast to d.c.-biased superconductors, which can be controlled by the bandstructure and the THz pump field.

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Cited by in corpus (33)

• Quantum Coherence Tomography of Lightwave Controlled Superconductivity
• Nonreciprocal Terahertz Second Harmonic Generation in Superconducting NbN under Supercurrent Injection
• Superconducting diode effect and nonreciprocal transition lines
• Third harmonic generation from collective modes in disordered superconductors
• Light Quantum Control of Persisting Higgs Modes in Iron-Based Superconductors
• Non-linear Terahertz Driving of Plasma Waves in Layered Cuprates
• Nonreciprocal optical response in parity-breaking superconductors
• Extreme Terahertz Magnon Multiplication Induced by Resonant Magnetic Pulse Pairs
• Band-selective third-harmonic generation in superconducting MgB${}_2$: Possible evidence for Higgs amplitude mode in the dirty limit
• Supercurrent-induced topological phase transitions
• Lightwave Terahertz Quantum Manipulation of Non-equilibrium Superconductor Phases and their Collective Modes
• Current-assisted Raman activation of the Higgs mode in superconductors
• High-order nonlinear terahertz probing of the two-band superconductor MgB${}_2$: Third- and fifth-order harmonic generation
• Optical Manipulation of Domains in Chiral Topological Superconductors
• Nonreciprocal Meissner response in parity-mixed superconductors
• Superconducting piezoelectric effect
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• Multi-Dimensional Coherent Spectroscopy of Light-Driven States and their Collective Modes in Multi-Band Superconductors
• Magnetic parity violation and parity-time-reversal-symmetric magnets
• Discovery of an Unconventional Quantum Echo by Interference of Higgs Coherence
• Second-order optical response of superconductors induced by supercurrent injection
• Two-dimensional coherent spectrum of high-spin models via a quantum computing approach
• Unlocking Quantum Control and Multi-Order Correlations via Terahertz Two-Dimensional Coherent Spectroscopy
• Quantum Liouville's theorem based on Haar measure
• Nonlinear optical responses in superconductors under magnetic fields: quantum geometry and topological superconductivity
• Theory of nonlinear terahertz susceptibility in ferroelectrics
• Geometric pumping and dephasing at topological phase transition
• Adaptive variational quantum computing approaches for Green's functions and nonlinear susceptibilities
• Controlling inversion and time-reversal symmetries by subcycle pulses in the one-dimensional extended Hubbard model
• Unique properties of the optical activity in noncentrosymmetric superconductors: sum rule, missing area, and relation with the superconducting Edelstein effect
• Temporal modulation of second harmonic generation in ferroelectrics by a pulsed electric field
• High Harmonic Generation from Isolated Bound States: Tunable Emission Spectra and Mollow Triplets
• Magnetic Brightening and Nanoscale Imaging of Spin-Polarized Helical Edge Modes