Andrea Cavalleri, Professor of Physics, University of Hamburg and University of Oxford
In this colloquium I will discuss some new research directions in condensed matter physics, which is emerging from the ability to drive collective excitations coherently with THz frequency radiation (e.g. phonons, superconducting plasmons, magnons). In these experiments, we explore the emergent behaviour of these solids when dynamically driven, seeking to extend phenomena like dynamical stabilization or even cavity cooling to complex solids. We also explore the nonlinear control of elementary excitations, which includes solitonic modes driven coherently with light. We aim at controlling their spatiotemporal properties coherently, steering them with light.