Cavity engineering of solid-state materials without external driving

TL;DR

This paper reviews the emerging field of cavity materials engineering, where strong light-matter interactions inside optical cavities modify solid-state material properties at room temperature without external driving.

Contribution

It provides a comprehensive overview of theoretical frameworks, experimental breakthroughs, and future challenges in cavity materials engineering, highlighting its potential for material property control.

Findings

Theoretical models for light-matter interactions in cavities.

Experimental evidence of altered ground state properties.

Proposals for tailoring material properties via cavity design.

Abstract

Confining electromagnetic fields inside an optical cavity can enhance the light-matter coupling between quantum materials embedded inside the cavity and the confined photon fields. When the interaction between the matter and the photon fields is strong enough, even the quantum vacuum field fluctuations of the photons confined in the cavity can alter the properties of the cavity-embedded solid-state materials at equilibrium and room temperature. This approach to engineering materials with light avoids fundamental issues of laser-induced transient matter states. To clearly differentiate this field from phenomena in driven systems, we call this emerging field cavity materials engineering. In this review, we first present theoretical frameworks, especially, ab initio methods, for describing light-matter interactions in solid-state materials embedded inside a realistic optical cavity. Next, we overview a few experimental breakthroughs in this domain, detailing how the ground state properties of materials can be altered within such confined photonic environments. Moreover, we discuss state-of-the-art theoretical proposals for tailoring material properties within cavities. Finally, we outline the key challenges and promising avenues for future research in this exciting field.