Light-induced emergent phenomena in 2D materials and topological materials

TL;DR

This review discusses recent advances in how light interacts with 2D and topological materials to induce emergent properties, phase transitions, and nonlinear responses, highlighting experimental progress and future challenges.

Contribution

It provides a comprehensive overview of light-induced phenomena in quantum materials, emphasizing recent experimental and theoretical developments and future research directions.

Findings

Observation of Floquet states in 2D materials

Light-induced topological phase transitions

Enhanced nonlinear optical responses due to geometric phase

Abstract

Light-matter interaction in 2D and topological materials provides a fascinating control knob for inducing emergent, non-equilibrium properties and achieving new functionalities in the ultrafast time scale (from fs to ps). Over the past decade, intriguing light-induced phenomena, e.g., Bloch-Floquet states and photo-induced phase transitions, have been reported experimentally, but many still await experimental realization. In this Review, we discuss recent progress on the light-induced phenomena, in which the light field could act as a time-periodic field to drive Floquet states, induce structural and topological phase transitions in quantum materials, couple with spin and various pseudospins, and induce nonlinear optical responses that are affected by the geometric phase. Perspectives on the opportunities of proposed light-induced phenomena as well as open experimental challenges are also discussed.