Nonlinear Diamagnetic Interactions in Ultrastrongly Coupled 2D Electrons

Abstract

The quantum Hopfield model is widely used to describe ultrastrong light--matter coupling between cavity photons and collective bosonic excitations in solids, where the diamagnetic interaction is conventionally assumed to be a constant. We experimentally demonstrate that the diamagnetic response of Landau polaritons is reduced under strong terahertz field excitation. We show that this behavior originates from field-driven redistribution of electrons into the nonparabolic regime of the conduction band of GaAs, which reduces the plasma frequency and consequently the diamagnetic interaction strength. A microscopic hot-electron model reproduces the observed nonlinear response. Motivated by this microscopic picture, we propose a nonlinear extension of the Hopfield model with a Kerr-like interaction. Our results establish a route toward nonlinear cavity quantum electrodynamics and driven ultrastrong light--matter coupling beyond the conventional linear Hopfield description, which is capable of creating uniquely quantum optical effects such as squeezed light generation.