Seminar - Artem Voloshniev, Aarhus University

Low-Energy Physics of Lead-Halide Perovskites Through the Lens of High-Energy Phenomena

Abstract: The energy spectrum of lead-halide perovskites (LHPs) near the band gap resembles that of a Dirac equation. This observation establishes a fruitful analogy between condensed matter and high-energy physics. On the one hand, it allows the use of well-established theoretical techniques to study strong-field effects in LHPs. On the other hand, it paves the way for experimental observations of textbook phenomena in high-energy physics.

The talk will first introduce LHPs as Dirac semiconductors, laying the foundation for discussing recent observations of tunneling ionization in LHPs and their interpretation in terms of the Schwinger effect. Besides being of general interest, this observation implies several useful applications, particularly in detecting strong electric fields, as demonstrated in the laboratory. Furthermore, I will argue that LHPs can potentially be employed to study Dirac-Pauli physics—an extension of the Dirac equation due to Pauli, which has found limited use in high-energy physics.