Details
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Article number | 193901 |
| Journal | Physical Review Letters |
| Volume | 122 |
| Issue number | 19 |
| Publication status | Published - 14 May 2019 |
Abstract
We revisit the mechanism of high-harmonic generation (HHG) from solids by comparing HHG in laser fields with different ellipticities but a constant maximum amplitude. It is shown that the cutoff of HHG is strongly extended in a circularly polarized field. Moreover, the harmonic yield with large ellipticity is comparable to or even higher than that in the linearly polarized field. To understand the underlying physics, we develop a reciprocal-space-trajectory method, which explains HHG in solids by a trajectory ensemble from different ionization times and different initial states in the reciprocal space. We show that the cutoff extension is related to an additional preacceleration step prior to ionization, which has been overlooked in solids. By analyzing the trajectories and the time-frequency spectrogram, we show that the HHG in solids cannot be interpreted in terms of the classical recollision picture alone. Instead, the radiation should be described by the electron-hole interband polarization, which leads to the unusual ellipticity dependence. We propose a new four-step model to understand the mechanism of HHG in solids.
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In: Physical Review Letters, Vol. 122, No. 19, 193901, 14.05.2019.
Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › Research › peer review
}
TY - JOUR
T1 - Reciprocal-space-trajectory perspective on high-harmonic generation in solids
AU - Li, Liang
AU - Lan, Pengfei
AU - Zhu, Xiaosong
AU - Huang, Tengfei
AU - Zhang, Qingbin
AU - Lein, Manfred
AU - Lu, Peixiang
N1 - Funding Information: We gratefully acknowledge G. Vampa for valuable discussions. This work is supported by the National Key R&D Program of China under Grant No. 2017YFE0116600 and the National Natural Science Foundation of China under Grants No. 11874165, No. 11627809, and No. 11774109, and the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation.
PY - 2019/5/14
Y1 - 2019/5/14
N2 - We revisit the mechanism of high-harmonic generation (HHG) from solids by comparing HHG in laser fields with different ellipticities but a constant maximum amplitude. It is shown that the cutoff of HHG is strongly extended in a circularly polarized field. Moreover, the harmonic yield with large ellipticity is comparable to or even higher than that in the linearly polarized field. To understand the underlying physics, we develop a reciprocal-space-trajectory method, which explains HHG in solids by a trajectory ensemble from different ionization times and different initial states in the reciprocal space. We show that the cutoff extension is related to an additional preacceleration step prior to ionization, which has been overlooked in solids. By analyzing the trajectories and the time-frequency spectrogram, we show that the HHG in solids cannot be interpreted in terms of the classical recollision picture alone. Instead, the radiation should be described by the electron-hole interband polarization, which leads to the unusual ellipticity dependence. We propose a new four-step model to understand the mechanism of HHG in solids.
AB - We revisit the mechanism of high-harmonic generation (HHG) from solids by comparing HHG in laser fields with different ellipticities but a constant maximum amplitude. It is shown that the cutoff of HHG is strongly extended in a circularly polarized field. Moreover, the harmonic yield with large ellipticity is comparable to or even higher than that in the linearly polarized field. To understand the underlying physics, we develop a reciprocal-space-trajectory method, which explains HHG in solids by a trajectory ensemble from different ionization times and different initial states in the reciprocal space. We show that the cutoff extension is related to an additional preacceleration step prior to ionization, which has been overlooked in solids. By analyzing the trajectories and the time-frequency spectrogram, we show that the HHG in solids cannot be interpreted in terms of the classical recollision picture alone. Instead, the radiation should be described by the electron-hole interband polarization, which leads to the unusual ellipticity dependence. We propose a new four-step model to understand the mechanism of HHG in solids.
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85065879177&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1103/PhysRevLett.122.193901
DO - 10.1103/PhysRevLett.122.193901
M3 - Article
C2 - 31144916
AN - SCOPUS:85065879177
VL - 122
JO - Physical Review Letters
JF - Physical Review Letters
SN - 0031-9007
IS - 19
M1 - 193901
ER -