Observation of magneto-electric rectification at non-relativistic intensities

• Published in: Nature communications Vol. 11; no. 1; pp. 5296 - 6
• Main Authors: Trinh, M. Tuan, Smail, Gregory, Makhal, Krishnandu, Yang, Da Seul, Kim, Jinsang, Rand, Stephen C.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: London Nature Publishing Group UK 20.10.2020; Nature Publishing Group; Nature Portfolio
• Subjects: 140/125; 147/3; 639/624/400/1101; 639/624/400/385; 639/624/400/482; 639/624/400/584; Coupling (molecular); Electric fields; Electrodynamics; Electromagnetism; Energy conversion; Humanities and Social Sciences; Luminous intensity; Magnetic fields; multidisciplinary; Nonlinear optics; Nonlinear systems; Nonlinearity; Optics; Relativistic effects; Science; Science (multidisciplinary); Thin films
• ISSN: 2041-1723; 2041-1723
• DOI: 10.1038/s41467-020-19125-w

The subject of electromagnetism has often been called electrodynamics to emphasize the dominance of the electric field in dynamic light–matter interactions that take place under non-relativistic conditions. Here we show experimentally that the often neglected optical magnetic field can nevertheless play an important role in a class of optical nonlinearities driven by both the electric and magnetic components of light at modest (non-relativistic) intensities. We specifically report the observation of magneto-electric rectification, a previously unexplored nonlinearity at the molecular level which has important potential for energy conversion, ultrafast switching, nano-photonics, and nonlinear optics. Our experiments were carried out in nanocrystalline pentacene thin films possessing spatial inversion symmetry that prohibited second-order, all-electric nonlinearities but allowed magneto-electric rectification. The role of the optical magnetic field is generally not considered at nonrelativistic light intensities. Here the authors show magneto-electric rectification, an optical nonlinear effect due to electric and magnetic field coupling, in a thin film of the organic semiconductor pentacene at non-relativistic intensities.