Quantum materials are systems in which electronic ground states emerge from strong interactions between charge, spin, lattice, and orbital degrees of freedom. These interactions may be enhanced by reduced dimensionality or geometric frustration, and may also result in topologically protected electronic states. Noninteracting single band models fail to adequately describe these systems. Time-resolved optical measurements using femtosecond laser pulses can be used to study strongly interacting degrees of freedom on their natural timescales. By photoexciting the samples gently, it is possible to study these dynamics without disturbing the underlying order. In this work, the relaxation dynamics of photoexcited quasiparticles are studied in several quantum materials in which Coulomb repulsion and spin-orbit coupling are both strong. The relaxation dynamics reveal information about the low energy energy electronic structure as well as the nature of the strong interactions that govern the emergent properties of the system.
Quantum materials are systems in which electronic ground states emerge from strong interactions between charge, spin, lattice, and orbital degrees of freedom. These interactions may be enhanced by reduced dimensionality or geometric frustration, and may also result in topologically protected electronic states. Noninteracting single band models fail to adequately describe these systems. Time-resolved optical measurements using femtosecond laser pulses can be used to study strongly interacting degrees of freedom on their natural timescales. By photoexciting the samples gently, it is possible to study these dynamics without disturbing the underlying order. In this work, the relaxation dynamics of photoexcited quasiparticles are studied in several quantum materials in which Coulomb repulsion and spin-orbit coupling are both strong. The relaxation dynamics reveal information about the low energy energy electronic structure as well as the nature of the strong interactions that govern the emergent properties of the system.
We theoretically investigate the dynamics of the photoexcited state in the strongly correlated low-dimensional electron systems. In the two-dimensional case, the ultrafast relaxation originating from the transfer of photogenerated charges in the antiferromagnetic background is followed by the slower one originating from the spin structure rearrangement with the new charge distributions. This clearly shows the difference in the relaxation between charge and spin degrees of freedom. In the one-dimensional case, spin-charge separation holds and the mechanical coherence is preserved.
The dynamics of electrons and holes in semiconductors and semiconductor heterostructures have been extensively discussed in the literature, and are governed by their mutual Coulomb interaction, by their interaction with lattice vibrations (phonons) and by their radiative recombination (for an overview see e.g. Ref. [1]). A powerful technique to study the carrier dynamics in semiconductors utilizes short optical pulses to photoexcite electrons from the valence to the conduction band (i.e. to create electron-hole pairs) that subsequently relax until the photon energy stored in the medium is dissipated and the system has recovered the thermal equilibrium. The dynamics of the carriers photoexcited by the short optical pulse can be followed by monitoring two main optical observables: the interband population difference and the induced polarization. Both quantities decay with time after the photoexcitation due to the carrier dynamics. While the induced polarization (which is an ensemble average over many photoexcited dipole moments) is sensitive to scattering events that break the phase relationship among the individual dipoles and/or with the light field creating them (dephasing processes), the population difference is sensitive only to events that change the energy state of the carriers. Transient coherent optical spectroscopy addresses the time-evolution of the induced polarization in the time-regime during and immediately following the photoexcitation by a short laser pulse, in which the photoexcited dipoles have retained a defined phase relationship among each other and with the exciting coherent radiation.
Physical properties of solid-state materials and other systems are determined by manifold interactions.While for weakly interacting systems their description in a single-particle picture is often sufficient, this approach fails when the interactions become stronger and many particles are involved.The quantum-mechanical problem of describing elementary excitations and collective behavior in many-body systems is often solved by introducing quasiparticles, thereby transforming the problem of strongly interacting particles to that of weakly interacting quasiparticles.
Optimizing various properties of materials have been under intensive focus for many decades. In recent years, the exposure of ultrafast techniques enhance the possibility of seizing this goal. As by employing these techniques, one can expose the system under strong short fields, and investigate the transient response of various low-lying excitations. Such studies will strengthen our understanding of interplays among various degrees of freedom in correlated materials, and thereby facilitate the chance to manipulate different properties of these systems. Of our particular attention is the electron-lattice dynamics, where modulating a particular vibrational mode of the crystal lattice, will lead to the emergence of new quasi stable'' lattice structures as well as novel transient phenomena. Aside from these experimental prospects, the above mentioned goals were also the subject of an extensive theoretical studies. In this thesis, we investigated the in and out of equilibrium dynamics of electronic systems which are interacting with lattice degrees of freedom. We employed the two-time Keldysh Green's function within the framework of the dynamical mean field theory to conduct our researches on this subject. In our first attempt, we studied the dynamical response of a one-electron system under a linear electron-lattice interaction. We explored the real-time formation of a bound quasiparticle, known as a polaron, under various parameter regimes of the model. We presented that when the carrier is suddenly coupled to the lattice degrees of freedom, the long-time response of the system in the strong coupling limit exhibits both bound, polaronic, and unbound, delocalized, states. We characterized the nature of such a mixed state using the adiabatic picture of the model. We also showed that the formed polaron is dressed by excited phononic states, in contrast to its equilibrium counterpart, where the ground-state phononic states are bounding the electron. We also addressed the response of a many-body electronic system, weakly coupled to a bosonic bath, under various time dependent excitations, which brings the system to a bad-metallic phase. We employed a model which treated the Coulomb repulsive interaction locally. We presented that the relaxation of this excited state varies by the strength of the electron-electron interaction. We demonstrated that, for both insulating and metallic regimes of the system, a slow relaxation dynamics can be observed close to the phase transition from the metallic to insulating regimes of the system. Our analysis revealed that in the metallic side, this slow evolution is rooted in the spin-related physics of the problem. However, in the insulating regimes of the model, our results showed that presence of a gap in the spectral density of the insulating system prohibits the relaxation of the excited particles. We also studied the associated timescale for the adiabatic dynamics near the Mott transition. Our results exhibited that there is a nonadiabatic window'' in the metallic side of the phase transition, in which the adiabatic timescale is extremely long. We pointed out that the presence of such a window is intertwined with the slow relaxation timescale of the spin-related dynamics close to the Mott transition. We also captured an induced metallic phase near metal-to-insulator transition out of equilibrium. We initiated this study using the slave-rotor impurity solver, which is been coupled to the self-energies obtained from the first-order Luttinger-Ward functional for the Phonon degrees of freedom. We presented the emergence of the larger spectral density at small frequencies both in metallic and insulating phases close to the phase transition, which is surrounded by pseudo gaps. We explored the physics of such spectral densities as well as their dependencies on the phononic parameters. We postulated that this response of the system is due to the evolution of the system, in a non-thermal mechanism, towards a temperature which is less than the initial temperature of the system, before coupling to the bath. We also pointed out that the associated very slow relaxation dynamics is the result of the formation of psuedo-gaps around the quasiparticle peak.
Quasiparticles are fundamental in describing the complex many-body interactions underlying single-particle excitations, playing a key role in understanding the macroscopic properties of quantum materials. Recent advancements in ultrafast laser technology, combined with various detection methods, have enabled precise monitoring and manipulation of quantum states and their dynamic processes. These developments not only enhance our comprehension of quasiparticle excitation mechanisms but also facilitate driving materials into non-equilibrium states, uncovering novel physical phenomena and advancing the design and application of innovative functional materials. The computational approach based on real-time time-dependent density functional theory (rt-TDDFT) transcends the limitations of linear response theory, enabling first-principles simulations of the dynamic response of strongly coupled quasiparticles under non-equilibrium conditions. The proposed method provides accurate predictions of highly nonlinear phenomena induced by strong laser fields, offering deeper insights into the underlying physical mechanisms. These theoretical insights are crucial for optimizing the performance of optoelectronic devices. This paper introduces the theoretical foundations of Ehrenfest dynamics within the framework of rt-TDDFT and presents case studies on the evolution of various quasiparticles under laser excitation. The results demonstrate the significant potential of ultrafast lasers for probing and controlling the properties of quantum materials, while also underscoring the vital role of dynamic simulations for studying non-equilibrium states and their time-domain characteristics.
We investigate the evolution of a photoexcitation in correlated materials over a wide range of time scales. The system studied is a one-dimensional model of a manganite with correlated electron, spin, orbital, and lattice degrees of freedom, which we relate to the three-dimensional material ${\mathrm{Pr}}_{1\ensuremath{-}x}{\mathrm{Ca}}_{x}{\mathrm{MnO}}_{3}$. The ground-state phases for the entire composition range are determined and rationalized by a coarse-grained polaron model. At half doping a pattern of antiferromagnetically coupled Zener polarons is realized. Using time-dependent density-matrix renormalization group (tDMRG), we treat the electronic quantum dynamics following the excitation. The emergence of quasiparticles is addressed, and the relaxation of the nonequilibrium quasiparticle distribution is investigated via a linearized quantum-Boltzmann equation. Our approach shows that the magnetic microstructure caused by the Zener polarons leads to an increase of the relaxation times of the excitation.