Tracing the dynamics of superconducting order via transient terahertz third-harmonic generation

Ultrafast optical control of quantum systems is an emerging field of physics. In particular, the possibility of light-driven superconductivity has attracted much of attention. To identify nonequilibrium superconductivity, it is necessary to measure fingerprints of superconductivity on ultrafast timescales. Recently, nonlinear THz third-harmonic generation (THG) was shown to directly probe the collective degrees of freedoms of the superconducting condensate, including the Higgs mode. Here, we extend this idea to light-driven nonequilibrium states in superconducting La