A1 – Optical nonlinearities of quantum systems in tailored light fields

During the first funding period, we have investigated nanoscale dielectrics driven by conventional optical fields and have developed respective codes. Now we are going to study how the nonlinear optical interaction of these quantum systems with light will be influenced by a tailored spatial-temporal structure of the field reaching down to atomic scales and a modulation within the optical cycle. This will include multi-color electromagnetic fields, those with strong phase variations on the nanometer scales, a tailored electric and magnetic vectorial structure created e.g., by mixing fundamental and second harmonic fields in the close vicinity of resonant nanostructures or by strong focusing. We aim on the deliberate excitation of magnetic transitions, both in the weak- and in the strong-field regime. We will study the fully vectorial and chiral response of atoms, molecules, 2D materials and nanostructures in intense light fields and will evaluate the spectral features of nonlinear absorption and/or of the generation of optical harmonics with the aim to remotely sense topological information such as the symmetry and chirality of quantum systems. We will further investigate how the photon statistics of light fields influences the evolution of electrons in matter and vice versa.

Based on our expertise in electromagnetic and quantum modeling and in continuation of the work done in the first funding period, we will develop methods describing quantum effects both in matter and field on the same footing, with the aim to model the joint nonlinear response of atomically thin materials and nanostructures with spatial-temporally tailored light fields.