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    Femtosecond Field‐Driven On‐Chip Unidirectional Electronic Currents in Nonadiabatic Tunneling Regime
    (Weinheim : Wiley VCH, 2021) Shi, Liping; Babushkin, Ihar; Husakou, Anton; Melchert, Oliver; Frank, Bettina; Yi, Juemin; Wetzel, Gustav; Demircan, Ayhan; Lienau, Christoph; Giessen, Harald; Ivanov, Misha; Morgner, Uwe; Kovacev, Milutin
    Recently, asymmetric plasmonic nanojunctions have shown promise as on-chip electronic devices to convert femtosecond optical pulses to current bursts, with a bandwidth of multi-terahertz scale, although yet at low temperatures and pressures. Such nanoscale devices are of great interest for novel ultrafast electronics and opto-electronic applications. Here, the device is operated in air and at room temperature, revealing the mechanisms of photoemission from plasmonic nanojunctions, and the fundamental limitations on the speed of optical-to-electronic conversion. Inter-cycle interference of coherent electronic wavepackets results in a complex energy electron distribution and birth of multiphoton effects. This energy structure, as well as reshaping of the wavepackets during their propagation from one tip to the other, determine the ultrafast dynamics of the current. It is shown that, up to some level of approximation, the electron flight time is well-determined by the mean ponderomotive velocity in the driving field.
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    Onset of Bloch oscillations in the almost-strong-field regime
    ([London] : Nature Publishing Group UK, 2022-12-13) Reislöhner, Jan; Kim, Doyeong; Babushkin, Ihar; Pfeiffer, Adrian N.
    In the field of high-order harmonic generation from solids, the electron motion typically exceeds the edge of the first Brillouin zone. In conventional nonlinear optics, on the other hand, the excursion of band electrons is negligible. Here, we investigate the transition from conventional nonlinear optics to the regime where the crystal electrons begin to explore the first Brillouin zone. It is found that the nonlinear optical response changes abruptly already before intraband currents due to ionization become dominant. This is observed by an interference structure in the third-order harmonic generation of few-cycle pulses in a non-collinear geometry. Although approaching Keldysh parameter γ = 1, this is not a strong-field effect in the original sense, because the iterative series still converges and reproduces the interference structure. The change of the nonlinear interband response is attributed to Bloch motion of the reversible (or transient or virtual) population, similar to the Bloch motion of the irreversible (or real) population which affects the intraband currents that have been observed in high-order harmonic generation.
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    Population difference gratings created on vibrational transitions by nonoverlapping subcycle THz pulses
    ([London] : Macmillan Publishers Limited, part of Springer Nature, 2021) Arkhipov, Rostislav; Pakhomov, Anton; Arkhipov, Mikhail; Babushkin, Ihar; Demircan, Ayhan; Morgner, Uwe; Rosanov, Nikolay
    We study theoretically a possibility of creation and ultrafast control (erasing, spatial frequency multiplication) of population density gratings in a multi-level resonant medium having a resonance transition frequency in the THz range. These gratings are produced by subcycle THz pulses coherently interacting with a nonlinear medium, without any need for pulses to overlap, thereby utilizing an indirect pulse interaction via an induced coherent polarization grating. High values of dipole moments of the transitions in the THz range facilitate low field strength of the needed THz excitation. Our results clearly show this possibility in multi-level resonant media. Our theoretical approach is based on an approximate analytical solution of time-dependent Schrödinger equation (TDSE) using perturbation theory. Remarkably, as we show here, quasi-unipolar subcycle pulses allow more efficient excitation of higher quantum levels, leading to gratings with a stronger modulation depth. Numerical simulations, performed for THz resonances of the H20 molecule using Bloch equations for density matrix elements, are in agreement with analytical results in the perturbative regime. In the strong-field non-perturbative regime, the spatial shape of the gratings becomes non-harmonic. A possibility of THz radiation control using such gratings is discussed. The predicted phenomena open novel avenues in THz spectroscopy of molecules with unipolar and quasi-unipolar THz light bursts and allow for better control of ultra-short THz pulses.
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    Stable coherent mode-locking based on π pulse formation in single-section lasers
    ([London] : Macmillan Publishers Limited, part of Springer Nature, 2021) Arkhipov, Rostislav; Pakhomov, Anton; Arkhipov, Mikhail; Babushkin, Ihar; Rosanov, Nikolay
    Here we consider coherent mode-locking (CML) regimes in single-section cavity lasers, taking place for pulse durations less than atomic population and phase relaxation times, which arise due to coherent Rabi oscillations of the atomic inversion. Typically, CML is introduced for lasers with two sections, the gain and absorber ones. Here we show that, for certain combination of the cavity length and relaxation parameters, a very stable CML in a laser, containing only gain section, may arise. The mode-locking is unconditionally self-starting and appears due to balance of intra-pulse de-excitation and slow interpulse-scale pump-induced relaxation processes. We also discuss the scaling of the system to shorter pulse durations, showing a possibility of mode-locking for few-cycle pulses.