Suppressing quantum effects by optically driven nonequilibrium phonons

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates that optically-driven nonequilibrium phonons can suppress nonlocal adiabatic responses in quantum-coherent disordered systems without significant heating, revealing quantum effects in Anderson insulators.

Contribution

It introduces a method to control quantum-coherent effects in disordered systems using optical excitation of phonons, highlighting a new way to probe quantum phenomena.

Findings

Suppression of long-range effects with weak infrared radiation

Minimal heating and conductance change during suppression

Evidence of quantum-coherent nature of the observed effects

Abstract

Optically-generated nonequilibrium phonon-distribution is used for exploring the origin of a nonlocal adiabatic response in an interacting Anderson insulator. Exposing the system to weak infrared radiation is shown to effectively suppress a long-range effect observed in field-effect experiments while producing little heating and barely changing the system conductance. These effects are shown to be consistent with the quantum nature of the effect and therefore are peculiar to disordered systems that are quantum-coherent.