The role of intraband dynamics in the generation of circularly polarized high harmonics from solids

Abstract

Recent studies have demonstrated that the polarization states of high harmonics from solids can differ from those of the driving pulses. To gain insights on the microscopic origin of this behavior, we perform one-particle intraband-only calculations and reproduce some of the most striking observations. For instance, our calculations yield circularly polarized harmonics from elliptically polarized pulses that sensitively depend on the driving conditions. Furthermore, we perform experiments on ZnS and find partly similar characteristics as reported from silicon. Comparison to our intraband-only calculations shows reasonable qualitative agreement for a below-band-gap harmonic. We show that intraband dynamics predict depolarization effects for higher field strengths. For harmonics above the band gap, interband dynamics become important and the high-harmonic response to elliptical excitation looks systematically different. Our work proposes a method to distinguish between different high-harmonic generation mechanisms and it could pave the way to compact solid-state high-harmonic sources with controllable polarization states.

References in corpus (3)

• Impact of the electronic band structure in high-harmonic generation spectra of solids
• Ellipticity dependence of high-harmonic generation in solids: unraveling the interplay between intraband and interband dynamics
• The Effect of Multiple Conduction Bands on High Harmonic Emission from Dielectrics

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• High-harmonic spectroscopy of strongly bound excitons in solids
• Uncovering Extreme Nonlinear Dynamics in Solids Through Time-Domain Field Analysis
• Propagation time and nondipole contributions to intraband high-harmonic generation
• Intra- and intercycle analysis of intraband high-order harmonic generation
• Spatial polarization gating of high-harmonic generation in solids