Tom S. Seifert

https://seifert-lab.com terahertz nanoscopy of quantum materials

New year, new Lab (website) - seifert-lab.com. Glad to move into the new SupraFAB in Berlin. Stay tuned for news on Terahertz Nanoscopy from my team.

Autumn Sale at TeraSpinTec. Order a T-Spin2 or two T-Spin1 spintronic THz emitters and get one of our THz detectors for free. teraspintec.com

We have a position with permanent perspective available in our group!

Nicole’s guide to writing research statements Sunflowers are blooming, stores are trumpeting back-to-school sales, and professors are scrambling to chart out the courses they planned to develop in July. If you’re applying for an academic job t…

Useful advice from @nicoleyh11.bsky.social.

quantumfrontiers.com/2025/08/10/n...

AI Comes Up with Bizarre Physics Experiments. But They Work. | Quanta Magazine Artificial intelligence software is designing novel experimental protocols that improve upon the work of human physicists, although the humans are still “doing a lot of baby-sitting.”

AI can improve the design of experiments. “It takes a lot to think this far outside of the accepted solution,” Adhikari said. “We really needed the AI.”

www.quantamagazine.org/ai-comes-up-...

Assume you take a magnet with a complex electronic band structure. Does the photon energy matter when triggering terahertz photocurrents? It is surprisingly insensitive. New preprint: arxiv.org/abs/2507.00977

Terahertz time-domain signatures of the inverse Edelstein effect in topological-insulator|ferromagnet heterostructures Three-dimensional topological insulators possess topologically protected surface states with spin-momentum locking, which enable spin-charge-current interconversion (SCI) by the inverse Edelstein effe...

Using ultrafast photocurrents to disentangle the dynamics of surface and bulk related spin-to-charge conversion in topological insulators. New preprint: arxiv.org/abs/2506.22327

Femtosecond photocurrents by the Dresselhaus bulk spin-galvanic effect in an inversion-asymmetric ferromagnet We study ultrafast photocurrents in thin films of a model ferromagnetic metal with broken bulk inversion symmetry, the half-metallic Heusler compound NiMnSb, following excitation with an optical pump ...

Magnets with inversion asymmetry can be used to induce terahertz spin photocurrents with unusual symmetries:
New preprint: arxiv.org/abs/2507.00360

Influence of atomic-scale defects on coherent phonon excitations by THz near fields in an STM Coherent phonons describe the collective, ultrafast motion of atoms and play a central role in light-induced structural dynamics. Here, we employ terahertz scanning tunneling microscopy (THz-STM) to e...

Ultrafast nanoscopy of atomic scale defects and their impact on phonon excitation in 2D materials. Check out our new preprint: arxiv.org/abs/2506.08219

Efficient broadband terahertz generation by above band-gap excitation of the pyroelectric ZnSnN2 Terahertz (THz) radiation is a powerful probe of low-energy excitations in all phases of matter. However, it remains a challenge to find materials that efficiently generate THz radiation in a broad ra...

Can pyroelectrics serve as efficient and broadband THz sources? Find it out: arxiv.org/abs/2506.09528

We have two open PhD positions in our group "Terahertz Physics of Quantum Materials". First about ultrafast spinorbitronics, second about femtosecond current dynamics in anisotropic media. www.fu-berlin.de/universitaet...

Great to see so many people stand up for tolerance and democracy in Berlin today.

New to Bluesky and from the Terahertz Community? Check out this Starter Pack: go.bsky.app/Ge13A5q #THzDoesItBetter

Talking about our latest insights into terahertz spinorbitronics today. Come join me at 10:45 at the MMM/Intermag 2025 in New Orleans.