Light-driven interlayer propagation of collective mode excitations in layered superconductors

Superconductors exhibit a nonlinear interaction with an applied light, which can resonantly excite the collective amplitude (Higgs) mode. Here we study light-induced dynamics of layered superconductors, where each layer is coupled to adjacent layers via the Josephson coupling and the first few layers near the surface are driven by an in-plane-polarized light. We study the system under the assumption that the interlayer Coulomb interactions are sufficiently screened out and that the phase-difference mode becomes available in the low-energy regime. We find that interlayer transport is induced via excitations of the collective amplitude and phase-difference modes, even when the applied electric field is parallel to the planes. We provide analytic calculations as well as numerical simulations of the real-time dynamics and investigate the influence on the light-induced interlayer Josephson current and intralayer third-harmonic generation. Published by the American Physical Society 2025