Optical melting of the transverse Josephson plasmon in bilayer and trilayer cuprates*

Using ultra-short laser pulses to drive quantum materials out of equilibrium is an emergent technique for dynamical materials control. Selectively driving low-energy excitations using femtosecond laser pulses can achieve novel quantum phases inaccessible at equilibrium.
Combining dynamical light control with ultra-broadband transient optical spectroscopy, we are able to directly probe the dynamics of lattice vibrations and electronic excitations over the whole far-infrared region, revealing the physics behind the transient quantum phases. In this talk, I will present our recent work on light-induced redistribution of interlayer coherence in bilayer and trilayer cuprates.

References:
[1] S. Kaiser, C. R. Hunt, D. Nicoletti, W. Hu, I. Gierz, H. Y. Liu, M. Le Tacon, T. Loew, D. Haug, B. Keimer, and A. Cavalleri, Phys. Rev. B 89, 184516 (2014).
[2] W. Hu*, S. Kaiser*, D. Nicoletti*, C. R. Hunt*, I. Gierz, M. C. Hoffmann, M. Le Tacon, T. Loew, B. Keimer, and A. Cavalleri, Nature Materials 13, 705 (2014). (*equal contribution)
[3] W. Hu, D. Nicoletti, A. V. Boris, B. Keimer and A. Cavalleri, Phys. Rev. B 95, 104508 (2017).