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Title: High-harmonic generation from an epsilon-near-zero material

Journal Article · · Nature Physics

High-harmonic generation (HHG) is a signature optical phenomenon of strongly driven, nonlinear optical systems. Specifically, the understanding of the HHG process in rare gases has played a key role in the development of attosecond science. Recently, HHG has also been reported in solids, providing novel opportunities such as controlling strong-field and attosecond processes in dense optical media down to the nanoscale. Here, we report HHG from a low-loss, indium-doped cadmium oxide thin film by leveraging the epsilon-near-zero (ENZ) effect, whereby the real part of the material’s permittivity in certain spectral ranges vanishes, as well as the associated large resonant enhancement of the driving laser field. We find that ENZ-assisted harmonics exhibit a pronounced spectral redshift as well as linewidth broadening, resulting from the photo induced electron heating and the consequent time-dependent ENZ wavelength of the material. Furthermore, our results provide a new platform to study strong-field and ultrafast electron dynamics in ENZ materials, reveal new degrees of freedom for spectral and temporal control of HHG, and open up the possibilities of compact solid-state attosecond light sources.

Research Organization:
Sandia National Lab. (SNL-NM), Albuquerque, NM (United States)
Sponsoring Organization:
USDOE Office of Science (SC), Basic Energy Sciences (BES)
Grant/Contract Number:
AC04-94AL85000
OSTI ID:
1544801
Report Number(s):
SAND-2019-8250J; 677498
Journal Information:
Nature Physics, Vol. 15, Issue 10; ISSN 1745-2473
Publisher:
Nature Publishing Group (NPG)Copyright Statement
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English
Citation Metrics:
Cited by: 114 works
Citation information provided by
Web of Science

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Cited By (7)

Broadband, High‐Speed, and Large‐Amplitude Dynamic Optical Switching with Yttrium‐Doped Cadmium Oxide journal December 2019
Above-threshold multiphoton photoemission from noble metal surfaces journal February 2020
Tunable metasurfaces for visible and SWIR applications journal January 2020
Self-interaction of ultrashort pulses in an epsilon-near-zero nonlinear material at the telecom wavelength journal January 2019
Adiabatic frequency shifting in epsilon-near-zero materials: the role of group velocity journal January 2020
Tunable metasurfaces for visible and SWIR applications journal January 2020
High-harmonic generation in metallic titanium nitride text January 2020

Figures / Tables (4)