Optical signatures of dynamical excitonic condensates

Excitons, or bound electron-hole pairs, can condense into an excitonic insulator state, similarly to Cooper pairs in superconductors. A non-equilibrium carrier concentration, such as the one transiently induced by photo-doping or sustained by a tuneable bias voltage in bilayers, can create a dynamical excitonic insulator state, yet proving phase coherence in such setups remains challenging.

We examine the condensate phase behavior theoretically and show that optical spectroscopy can distinguish between phase-trapped and phase-delocalized dynamical regimes. In the weak-bias regime, trapped phase dynamics result in an in-gap absorption peak nearly independent of bias voltage, while at higher biases its frequency increases approximately linearly.

Both regimes exhibit pronounced second harmonic responses. In the large bias regime, the response current grows strongly under the application of a weak electric probe leading to negative weight in the optical response, which we analyze relative to predictions from a minimal model for the phase. This work opens new avenues for experimentally probing coherence in excitonic condensates and the detection of their dynamical regimes.