内容摘要：The quest to control and manipulate emergent phases of quantum materials with light has advanced rapidly in recent years. Floquet engineering, where periodic driving reshapes electronic states and their interactions, provided much of the early conceptual motivation for this field [1]. While these ideas demonstrated the remarkable potential of light as a tool for quantum materials design, they also highlighted fundamental challenges associated with heating, decoherence, and the transient nature of driven states.
A complementary frontier has since emerged: cavity quantum materials [2]. By embedding materials in tailored electromagnetic environments, quantum fluctuations of light can hybridize with electronic and collective excitations and modify material properties even without classical illumination. I will discuss some of the basic ideas behind this approach, including our proposal for cavity-modified electron–phonon coupling and superconductivity [3], as well as the possibility of inducing topological electronic states such as a cavity Chern insulator through coupling to quantum light [4].
I will then focus on recent developments in the control of superconductivity. Experiments by Basov and collaborators have demonstrated that coupling a molecular superconductor to the hyperbolic electromagnetic modes of hBN can substantially alter its superconducting response [5]. In parallel, experiments on light-induced superconducting-like states raise the broader question of whether driving can selectively access correlated many-body states that are difficult or impossible to stabilize in equilibrium. I will discuss our recent work on resonant light-enhanced pairing in strongly correlated systems [6] and the emerging idea of using light and cavities to navigate the many-body energy landscape. Together, these developments suggest a path from Floquet engineering toward a broader framework in which classical and quantum electromagnetic fields become tools for controlling—and potentially creating—correlated quantum phases.
参考文献：
[1] A. de la Torre et al., Rev. Mod. Phys. 93, 041002 (2021).
[2] F. Schlawin, D. M. Kennes, and M. A. Sentef, Appl. Phys. Rev. 9, 011312 (2022).
[3] M. A. Sentef et al., Sci. Adv. 5, eaau6969 (2019).
[4] X. Wang, E. Ronca, and M. A. Sentef, Phys. Rev. B 99, 235156 (2019).
[5] I. Keren et al., Nature (2026).
[6] J. I. Aranzadi, J. Tindall, P. Fadler, and M. A. Sentef, “Microscopic mechanism for resonant light-enhanced pair correlations in K3C60,” arXiv:2604.10987 (2026).
报告人简介：Michael A. Sentef is Professor of Theoretical Solid-State Physics at the University of Bremen, where he leads the Light–Matter Control of Quantum Materials group. He received his PhD in Physics from the University of Augsburg in 2010 and subsequently held postdoctoral positions at Stanford University and the University of Bonn. From 2016 to 2022, he led an Emmy Noether Research Group at the Max Planck Institute for the Structure and Dynamics of Matter (MPSD) in Hamburg before joining the University of Bremen in 2023.
His research focuses on the theory of light–matter control of quantum materials, spanning nonequilibrium many-body physics, Floquet engineering, and cavity quantum materials. He is the Principal Investigator of the ERC Consolidator Grant CAVMAT (“Cavity Quantum Materials”) and Co-Speaker of the DFG Research Unit OPTIMAL. His work explores how coherent driving and engineered quantum electromagnetic environments can be used to control electronic correlations, topology, and superconductivity.
