Quantum Materials and Phase Transitions

Dear Colleagues,

Advances in light sources and time-resolved spectroscopy on the ultrashort scales initiated a paradigm shift in condensed matter physics—from observation and description to design by coupling to external electromagnetic fields. Numerous proposals have been pushed forward for creating new materials with novel properties by putting systems into an entangled light–matter state and culminated recently in the field of femtochemistry, the Floquet engineering of topological insulators, light-induced superconductivity, and insulator–metal and hidden phase transitions.

These experimental advancements pose considerable challenges for theory because:

• Vastly different energy and length scales are involved: phonon energy vs. electron bandwidth, exchange interactions between spins vs. the onsite Hund interactions, local Hubbard correlations vs. nonlocal screening;
• Quantum aspects play a role not only for electrons, but also for other involved quasiparticles: phonons, magnons, etc.;
• One needs to simultaneously deal with numerous intertwined orders, e.g., magnetic, excitonic, superconducting.

These challenges motivate the focus of this Special Issue: We call for theoretical and experimental papers devoted to quantum materials and phase transitions manifested in coherent electron dynamics of continuously driven or instantaneously excited correlated systems.

Dr. Yaroslav Pavlyukh
Guest Editor

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• nonequilibrium excitonic insulators
• transition metal dichalcogenides and oxides
• light-induced superconductivity
• nonlinear phononics
• valley control and Berry phase modulation
• Floquet engineering
• van der Waals materials