Abstract:

Attosecond spectroscopy and strong light fields boldly ventured into solid state physics about a decade ago. In the years since then, we have learned to appreciate that strong light fields drive electrons in solids not on the time-scale of the pulse envelope, but rather on the sub-cycle time scale. Furthermore, control over light oscillations and light polarization on the sub-cycle scale opens the opportunities to control the electronic response on sub-femtosecond time-scale. To illustrate this point, I will provide a series of examples, ranging from PHz valleytronics in graphene to attosecond spectroscopy of the 2D Hubbard model.

However, in the unlikely event that I have enough time to prepare new slides for this talk, I will change it completely. Instead, I will discuss our latest results on resolving the mystery of insanely fast 1 fsec dephasing times in strongly driven solids and the very puzzling behavior of not so massless, massless Fermions in Weyl semimetals.

Biography: 

Mikhail Ivanov is Head of the Theory Department at Max Born Institute and Professor of the Department of Physics at Humboldt University.

Born in the USSR and educated in Moscow State University, Misha left Moscow within a year after the USSR ceased to exist.

Since then, he has worked in Canada, Poland, UK, and Germany, where he now heads the Department of Theory at the Max Born Institute for Nonlinear Optics and Short Pulse Spectroscopy in Berlin, together with professorship at the Humboldt University Berlin.

Because Misha likes London, he still manages to keep his professor appointment at the Imperial College London, and because Misha loves Israel, he is also partially localized at the Technion in Haifa, where he now holds a visiting professor appointment.