Magneto-Stark and Zeeman effect as origin of second harmonic generation of excitons in Cu2O

Abstract

We report on the experimental and theoretical investigation of magnetic-field-induced second harmonic generation (SHG) and two-photon absorption of excited exciton states ($n\ensuremath{\geqslant}3$) of the yellow series in the cuprous oxide ${\mathrm{Cu}}_{2}\mathrm{O}$. In this centrosymmetric material, SHG can occur due to constructive interplay of electric dipole and electric quadrupole/magnetic dipole transitions for light propagating along the low-symmetry directions [111] or [112]. By application of a magnetic field in Voigt configuration, SHG gets also allowed for excitation along the [110] axis and even the high-symmetry cubic direction [001]. Combining a symmetry analysis and a microscopic theory, we uncover the two key contributions to the magnetic-field-induced SHG: the Zeeman effect and the magneto-Stark effect. We demonstrate systematic dependencies of the SHG intensity on the linear polarization angles of the ingoing fundamental laser and the outgoing SHG beam, complementary to the paper by Rommel et al. [Phys. Rev. B 101, 115202 (2020)]. In general, the resulting contour plots in combination with a symmetry analysis allow one to determine uniquely the character of involved transitions. Moreover, we can separate in magnetic field the Zeeman and the magneto-Stark effect through appropriate choice of the experimental geometry and polarization configuration. We present a microscopic theory of the second harmonic generation of excitons in a centrosymmetric cubic semiconductor taking into account the symmetry and the band structure of cuprous oxide. Based on the developed microscopic theory, we identify the main contributions to the second-order nonlinear susceptibility of $S, P$, and $D$ excitons. We analyze the redistribution of SHG intensities between the excitonic states both in the absence and presence of the magnetic field and show good agreement with the experimental data. With increasing exciton principal quantum number, the magneto-Stark effect overpowers the influence of the Zeeman effect.