| Brief Bio of the Speaker | Jigang Wang currently is a professor in the Department of Physics and Astronomy at Iowa State University and staff scientist in Ames laboratory of US Department of Energy. He received his Ph.D. from Rice University at 2005, joined Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory as a postdoctoral fellow from 2005-2008, and then settled at Iowa State University since 2008. His research broadly concerns with non-equilibrium quantum dynamics, ultrafast spectroscopy and nano-imaging of complex materials. He is recipient of the NSF CAREER award and lead PI of the M.W.Keck Award on Quantum Microscopy. |
Abstract | Harnessing quantum coherence and prethermalization has emerged as a cross-cutting theme for discovering and controlling emergent, even thermodynamically forbidden, states of matter. In this talk, I will discuss our recent progress towards applying these new tuning knobs to reveal quantum dynamics and achieve coherent control in several systems of current focus including superconductors [1], organometal halide perovskites [2] and topological matter [3]. Particularly, our results show that terahertz (THz) light-driven coherence allows the observation of forbidden collective modes and hidden many-body quantum phases that cannot be accessed by any other tuning methods. We discover fundamentally new quantum control mechanisms that involve non-adiabatic Hamiltonian engineering to design exotic “initial conditions” for subsequent, selective phase evolution. Finally I will discuss far-reaching consequences of the THz coherent control strategy on quantum systems discovery.
[1] X. Yang… J. Wang, Nature Materials (2018)
[2] L. Luo… J. Wang, Nature Communications (2017)
[3] X. Yang… J. Wang, in review, Nature Communication (2018); arxiv.org/1805.03540
The work is in collaboration with K.M.Ho’s group, I.E.Perakis’ group, C.B.Eom’s group, J.K.Furdyna’s group, J. Vela’s group, P.C. Canfield’sgroup. |
