Temperature-induced dephasing in high-order harmonic generation from solids

Abstract

High harmonic generation (HHG) in solid and gaseous targets has been proven to be a powerful avenue for the generation of attosecond pulses, whereas the influence of electron-phonon scattering on HHG is a critical outstanding problem. Here we first introduce a temperature dependent lattice vibration model by characterizing the spacing fluctuation. Our results reveal that (i) structural disorder induced by lattice vibration does not lead to generation of even-order harmonics; (ii) dephasing of HHG occurs as the lattice temperature is growing; (iii) an open-trajectory picture predicts the maximal photon energy in the temperature-dependent HHG spectra. Moreover, a formula assessing dephasing time with lattice temperature is proposed to identify the timescale of electron-phonon scattering. This work paves a way to study non-Born-Oppenheimer effect in solids driven by strong field.