Work

Large inverse Faraday effect for Rydberg states of free atoms and isolated donors in semiconductors

Year: 2025

Type: article

Abstract: We report on the induction of magnetization in Rydberg systems by means of the inverse Faraday effect and propose the appearance of the effect in two such systems: Rydberg atoms proper and shallow dopants in semiconductors. Rydberg atoms are characterized by a large orbital radius. This large radius gives such excited states a large angular moment, which when driven with circularly polarized light translates to a large effective magnetic field B eff . We calculate this effect to generate effective magnetic fields of O ( 1 µ T ) × ( ω 1 THz ) − 1 ( I 10 W cm − 2 ) n 4 in the Rydberg states of atoms such as Rb and Cs for off-resonant photon beams with frequency ω and intensity I expressed in units of the denominators and n the principal quantum number. Additionally, terahertz spectroscopy of phosphorus-doped silicon reveals a large cross section for excitation of shallow dopants to Rydberg-like states, which even for small n have the potential to be driven similarly with circularly polarized light to produce an even larger magnetization. Our theoretical calculations estimate B eff as O ( 10 2 T ) for Si:P with a beam intensity of 10 8 W cm − 2 .

Source: Physical review. B./Physical review. B

DOI: 10.1103/physrevb.111.064425

Authors: Patrick J. Wong, Ivan M. Khaymovich, Gabriel Aeppli, Alexander V. Balatsky

Institutions: Nordic Institute for Theoretical Physics, University of Connecticut, Paul Scherrer Institute, ETH Zurich, École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne

Language: English

Topic: Laser-Matter Interactions and Applications

Subfield: Atomic and Molecular Physics, and Optics

Field: Physics and Astronomy

Domain: Physical Sciences

Open Access status: hybrid