# Floquet metal to insulator phase transitions in semiconductor nanowires

## TL;DR

This paper investigates how strong periodic driving in semiconductor nanowires induces a phase transition from an electron-hole metal to a Floquet insulator, characterized by changes in the density response function.

## Contribution

It demonstrates the control of phase transitions in nanowires via periodic driving and analyzes the critical point between the phases, providing insights into non-equilibrium phases.

## Key findings

- Transition driven by tuning the drive strength
- Presence of density response peaks in EHM phase
- Absence of peaks in Floquet insulator phase

## Abstract

We study steady-states of semiconductor nanowires subjected to strong resonant time-periodic drives. The steady-states arise from the balance between electron-phonon scattering, electron-hole recombination via photo-emission, and Auger scattering processes. We show that tuning the strength of the driving field drives a transition between an electron-hole metal (EHM) phase and a Floquet insulator (FI) phase. We study the critical point controlling this transition. The EHM-to-FI transition can be observed by monitoring the presence of peaks in the density-density response function which are associated with the Fermi momentum of the EHM phase, and are absent in the FI phase. Our results may help guide future studies towards inducing novel non-equilibrium phases of matter by periodic driving.