Fluctuation engineering in cavity quantum materials

TL;DR

This review discusses how engineering electromagnetic fluctuations in cavity quantum materials can control quantum phases, highlighting design tools, recent advances, and future challenges across various platforms.

Contribution

It provides a comprehensive fluctuation-focused perspective, organizing the field, surveying design tools, and outlining challenges in multimode regimes.

Findings

Vacuum and thermal spectra can shift phase boundaries.

Structured fluctuations can stabilize or suppress orders.

The review maps opportunities for control across multiple platforms.

Abstract

Coupling tailored electromagnetic fluctuations to materials provides a resource for controlling correlated quantum matter. By structuring the frequency, spatial, and modal distribution of fluctuations through a new generation of cavity quantum materials, vacuum and thermal spectra can shift phase boundaries and stabilize or suppress orders. This review organizes the field around a fluctuation-focused perspective, surveying a practical design toolbox and recent milestones, and outlining theory-experiment challenges in realistic, multimode, beyond-long-wavelength regimes. We highlight photonic observables and map opportunities for equilibrium and driven control across superconducting, magnetic, moire, and topological platforms.