1:30 pm MCP 201
Probing and controlling quantum materials with nano-light.
For centuries, the diffraction limit stood as a seemingly insurmountable barrier preventing access to optical effects at length scales shorter than the wavelength of light. This is now in the past. Modern nano-photonics solutions routinely allow one to execute optical spectroscopy and imaging at the atomic scale. I will overview recent advances in condensed matter physics made by our group at Columbia using nano-optical methods for:
- controlling the superfluid density in unconventional superconductors1 (January 26, Kadanoff Center for Theoretical Physics)
and
- probing the physics of correlated electrons in layered van der Waals materials2 (January 27, James Franck Institute).
[1] Itai Keren et al. Cavity-altered superconductivity, Nature 2026, ArXiv:2505.17378;
[2] Francesco Ruta et al. Good plasmons in a bad metal, Science 387, 786 (2025) and Suheng Xu et al. [unpublished]