Transferring Structure from Light to Currents

Since the invention of the laser, our ability to control and utilize the rich properties of light has grown steadily. With advanced light comes the opportunity to steer and probe electrons in matter with commensurate precision. In coherent control, a phase-related property of one or more optical pulses is used adjust the final state that electrons occupy once the optical pulses have subsided. In this presentation, I will show that two-color coherent control can be used transfer the spatial structure of optical pulses to the spatial arrangement of currents in a medium. By applying cylindrical vector beams and beams with phase structure to coherent control, we demonstrate the possibility to produce strong, femtosecond-duration magnetic fields that are spatially isolated from their electric field counterparts.