Light-wave control of correlated materials using quantum magnetism during time-periodic modulation of coherent transport

Light-wave quantum electronics utilizes the oscillating carrier wave to control electronic properties with intense laser pulses. Without direct light-spin interactions, however, magnetic properties can only be indirectly affected by the light electric field, mostly at later times. A grand challenge is how to establish a universal principle for quantum control of charge and spin fluctuations, which can allow for faster-than-THz clock rates. Using quantum kinetic equations for the density matrix describing non-equilibrium states of Hubbard quasiparticles, here we show that time-periodic modulation of electronic hopping during few cycles of carrier-wave oscillations can dynamically steer an antiferromagnetic insulating state into a metalic state with transient magnetization. While nonlinearities associated with quasi-stationary Floquet states have been achieved before, magneto-electronics based on quasi-particle acceleration by time-periodic multi-cycle fields and quantum femtosecond/attosecond magnetism via strongly-coupled charge-spin quantum excitations represents an alternative way of controlling magnetic moments in sync with quantum transport.

Panagiotis C. Lingos, Myron D. Kapetanakis, Jigang Wang, Ilias E. Perakis