Nonlinear Quantum Electrodynamics in Dirac materials (original) (raw)

Classical electromagnetism is linear. However, fields can polarize the vacuum Dirac sea, causing quantum nonlinear electromagnetic phenomena, e.g., scattering and splitting of photons that occur only in very strong fields found in neutron stars or heavy ion colliders. We show that strong nonlinearity arises in Dirac materials at much lower fields ∼ 1T, allowing us to explore the extremely high field limit of quantum electrodynamics in solids. We explain recent experiments in a unified framework and predict nonlinear magneto-electric response, including a magnetic enhancement of dielectric constant and electrically induced magnetization. We propose experiments and discuss the applications on novel materials.