OSC Colloquium: Kyle Seyler, "Light-Driven Correlated Magnets"

Title

Light-Driven Correlated Magnets

Abstract 

The quest to control the quantum properties of materials promises to unlock new physics and enable novel devices. An emerging approach is to harness ultrashort pulses of light to detect and modify the peculiar phenomena hosted by quantum materials. In this talk, I will focus on our efforts to probe and control antiferromagnetic materials with ultrafast laser pulses. I will first show how optical second-harmonic generation can sensitively detect antiferromagnetic order, allowing the visualization of domains and domain walls. I will then highlight our discovery that antiferromagnetic domain walls can be driven to supersonic speeds by intense circularly polarized laser pulses.

Bio

Kyle Seyler recently joined the University of Arizona’s College of Optical Sciences as an Assistant Professor. He received his PhD in Physics from the University of Washington in 2018 where he used optical spectroscopy to study two-dimensional materials and their heterostructures. He was then a postdoctoral scholar at the California Institute of Technology where he explored the nonlinear and ultrafast optical properties of strongly correlated materials. His new lab will focus on harnessing laser light to unravel and control the complex phenomena that occur in designer quantum materials.

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The recording of this colloquium is not publicly accessible. 

Contact

Florian Willomitzer, Colloquium Chair & Professor: colloquium@optics.arizona.edu