Sculpting ultrafast mid-infrared light for solid-state high harmonic generation

Fuente: arXiv
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Main Authors: Granados, Camilo, Kiss, Bálint, Cormier, Eric, Das, Bikash Kumar, Rajak, Debobrata, Rosales-Guzman, Carmelo, Shrestha, Rajaram, Zhan, Qiwen, Gao, Wenlong
Format: Preprint
Published: 2025
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author Granados, Camilo
Kiss, Bálint
Cormier, Eric
Das, Bikash Kumar
Rajak, Debobrata
Rosales-Guzman, Carmelo
Shrestha, Rajaram
Zhan, Qiwen
Gao, Wenlong
author_facet Granados, Camilo
Kiss, Bálint
Cormier, Eric
Das, Bikash Kumar
Rajak, Debobrata
Rosales-Guzman, Carmelo
Shrestha, Rajaram
Zhan, Qiwen
Gao, Wenlong
contents The ability to sculpt light in space, time, and polarization has revolutionized studies of light-matter interaction and enabled breakthroughs in optical communication, imaging, and ultrafast science. Among the many degrees of freedom of light, orbital angular momentum (OAM) further expands these capabilities by unlocking new regimes of control in information encoding, particle trapping and manipulation, and symmetry-driven selection rules. However, exploiting OAM to drive nonlinear, non-perturbative effects in solids remains challenging, especially in the mid-infrared (MIR) spectral regime-a key region for accessing these effects in ambient air, where spatial light modulators do not operate. Here, we circumvent this limitation by generating femtosecond, few-cycle MIR Bessel-Gauss vortex (BGV) and perfect optical vortices (POVs), using a robust, static spatial-shaping strategy. By utilizing these beams to drive nonlinear optical processes such as second-harmonic generation (SHG) and high-harmonic generation (HHG) in various solid-state materials, we show that the resulting harmonic beams faithfully inherit the structural characteristics of the drivers: the constant-intensity ring of the POVs is preserved across harmonic orders, while the BGV harmonic beams retain their intrinsic topological charge-dependent intensity profiles. Furthermore, by verifying the linear OAM up-scaling law, we confirm the conservation of OAM during SHG and HHG in solids. These results establish strong-field HHG in solids as a robust platform for synthesizing ultrafast structured harmonic light with controllable, high-value OAM.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2512_19412
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Sculpting ultrafast mid-infrared light for solid-state high harmonic generation
Granados, Camilo
Kiss, Bálint
Cormier, Eric
Das, Bikash Kumar
Rajak, Debobrata
Rosales-Guzman, Carmelo
Shrestha, Rajaram
Zhan, Qiwen
Gao, Wenlong
Optics
The ability to sculpt light in space, time, and polarization has revolutionized studies of light-matter interaction and enabled breakthroughs in optical communication, imaging, and ultrafast science. Among the many degrees of freedom of light, orbital angular momentum (OAM) further expands these capabilities by unlocking new regimes of control in information encoding, particle trapping and manipulation, and symmetry-driven selection rules. However, exploiting OAM to drive nonlinear, non-perturbative effects in solids remains challenging, especially in the mid-infrared (MIR) spectral regime-a key region for accessing these effects in ambient air, where spatial light modulators do not operate. Here, we circumvent this limitation by generating femtosecond, few-cycle MIR Bessel-Gauss vortex (BGV) and perfect optical vortices (POVs), using a robust, static spatial-shaping strategy. By utilizing these beams to drive nonlinear optical processes such as second-harmonic generation (SHG) and high-harmonic generation (HHG) in various solid-state materials, we show that the resulting harmonic beams faithfully inherit the structural characteristics of the drivers: the constant-intensity ring of the POVs is preserved across harmonic orders, while the BGV harmonic beams retain their intrinsic topological charge-dependent intensity profiles. Furthermore, by verifying the linear OAM up-scaling law, we confirm the conservation of OAM during SHG and HHG in solids. These results establish strong-field HHG in solids as a robust platform for synthesizing ultrafast structured harmonic light with controllable, high-value OAM.
title Sculpting ultrafast mid-infrared light for solid-state high harmonic generation
topic Optics
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2512.19412