Xinwei Li

• Doctor of Philosophy
• Assistant Professor at National University of Singapore

Cooperative quantum magnetism One of the earliest and most intensively studied problems in quantum optics is the interaction of a two-level system (an atom) with a single photon. This simple system provides a rich platform for exploring exotic light-matter interactions and the emergence of more complex phenomena such as superradiance, which is a co...

A two-level system resonantly interacting with an a.c. magnetic or electric field constitutes the physical basis of diverse phenomena and technologies. However, Schrödinger’s equation for this seemingly simple system can be solved exactly only under the rotating-wave approximation, which neglects the counter-rotating field component. When the a.c....

Photo-excited quantum materials can be driven into thermally inaccessible metastable states that exhibit structural, charge, spin, topological and superconducting orders. Metastable states typically emerge on timescales set by the intrinsic electronic and phononic energy scales, ranging from femtoseconds to picoseconds, and can persist for weeks. T...

We have observed photoinduced negative optical conductivity, or gain, in the terahertz frequency range in a GaAs multiple-quantum-well structure in a strong perpendicular magnetic field at low temperatures. The gain is narrow band: it appears as a sharp peak (linewidth <0.45 meV) whose frequency shifts with applied magnetic field. The gain has a ci...

The fate of a Mott insulator under strong low frequency optical driving conditions is a fundamental problem in quantum many-body dynamics. Using ultrafast broadband optical spectroscopy, we measured the transient electronic structure and charge dynamics of an off-resonantly pumped Mott insulator Ca_{2}RuO_{4}. We observe coherent bandwidth renormal...

Two-level atoms ultrastrongly coupled with single-mode cavity photons are predicted to exhibit a quantum phase transition, entering a phase in which both the atomic polarization and the photonic field are finite even without external driving. However, this phenomenon, the superradiant phase transition (SRPT), is forbidden by a no-go theorem due to...

The hexagonal MnTe is a prime material candidate for altermagnets, an emerging class of magnetic compounds characterized by the nontrivial interplay of antiparallel spin arrangements with their underlying crystal structures. Recognizing precise knowledge of crystal symmetry as the cornerstone of the spin-group classification scheme, we report here...

Two-dimensional Mott insulators host antiferromagnetic (AFM) correlations that are predicted to enhance the attractive interaction between empty (holons) and doubly occupied (doublons) sites, creating a novel pathway for exciton formation. However, experimental confirmation of this spin-mediated binding mechanism remains elusive. Leveraging the dis...

The Dicke model describes the cooperative interaction of an ensemble of two-level atoms with a single-mode photonic field and exhibits a quantum phase transition as a function of light–matter coupling strength. Extending this model by incorporating short-range atom–atom interactions makes the problem intractable but is expected to produce new physi...

The identification of distinct charge transport features, deriving from nontrivial bulk band and surface states, has been a challenging subject in the field of topological systems. In topological Dirac and Weyl semimetals, nontrivial conical bands with Fermi-arc surface states give rise to negative longitudinal magnetoresistance due to chiral anoma...

Two-level atoms coupled with single-mode cavity photons are predicted to exhibit a quantum phase transition when the coupling strength exceeds a critical value, entering a phase in which atomic polarization and the photonic field are finite even at zero temperature and without external driving. However, this phenomenon, the superradiant phase trans...

Ultrafast laser excitation provides a means to transiently realize long-range ordered electronic states of matter that are hidden in thermal equilibrium. Recently, this approach has unveiled a variety of thermally inaccessible ordered states in strongly correlated materials, including charge density wave, ferroelectric, magnetic, and intertwined ch...

The undoped antiferromagnetic Mott insulator naturally has one charge carrier per lattice site. When it is doped with additional carriers, they are unstable to spin-fluctuation-mediated Cooper pairing as well as other unconventional types of charge, spin and orbital current ordering. Photo-excitation can produce charge carriers in the form of empty...

The identification of distinct charge transport features, deriving from nontrivial bulk band and surface states, has been a challenging subject in the field of topological systems. In topological Dirac and Weyl semimetals, nontrivial conical bands with Fermi-arc surfaces states give rise to negative longitudinal magnetoresistance due to chiral anom...

The third-order nonlinear susceptibility χ(3) occurs universally in materials and can provide label-free fingerprint of materials’ electronic, vibrational, and structural information. One quantitative spectroscopic method to access low-energy resonances of χ(3) is the terahertz electric field induced second harmonic generation (TEFISH), which is pa...

The Dicke model describes the cooperative interaction of an ensemble of two-level atoms with a single-mode photonic field and exhibits a quantum phase transition as a function of light--matter coupling strength. Extending this model by incorporating short-range atom--atom interactions makes the problem intractable but is expected to produce new pha...

The third-order nonlinear susceptibility χ³ occurs universally in materials and can provide label-free fingerprint of materials’ electronic, vibrational, and structural information. One quantitative spectroscopic method to access low-energy resonances of χ³ is the terahertz electric field induced second harmonic generation (TEFISH), particularly su...

The third-order nonlinear susceptibility χ³ occurs universally in materials and can provide label-free fingerprint of materials’ electronic, vibrational, and structural information. One quantitative spectroscopic method to access low-energy resonances of χ³ is the terahertz electric field induced second harmonic generation (TEFISH), particularly su...

Elemental tellurium is a strongly spin-orbit coupled Peierls-distorted semiconductor whose band structure features topologically protected Weyl nodes. Using time-dependent density functional theory calculations, we show that impulsive optical excitation can be used to transiently control the amplitude of the Peierls distortion, realizing a mechanis...

Elemental tellurium is a strongly spin-orbit coupled Peierls-distorted semiconductor whose band structure features topologically protected Weyl nodes. Using time-dependent density functional theory calculations, we show that impulsive optical excitation can be used to transiently control the amplitude of the Peierls distortion, realizing a mechanis...

Recent interest in developing fast spintronic devices and laser-controllable magnetic solids has sparked tremendous experimental and theoretical efforts to understand and manipulate ultrafast dynamics in materials. Studies of spin dynamics in the terahertz (THz) frequency range are particularly important for elucidating microscopic pathways toward...

The transition metal monopnictide family of Weyl semimetals recently has been shown to exhibit anomalously strong second-order optical nonlinearity, which is theoretically attributed to a highly asymmetric polarization distribution induced by their polar structure. We experimentally test this hypothesis by measuring optical second harmonic generati...

Macroscopic assemblies of aligned carbon nanotubes (CNTs) have been doubling in conductivity every three years and have now surpassed 10 MS/m [1]. They are promising for replacing copper- or aluminum-based electrical cables in applications where flexibility or weight savings are critical considerations. Understanding of transport processes in these...

The transition metal monopnictide family of Weyl semimetals recently has been shown to exhibit anomalously strong second-order optical nonlinearity, which is theoretically attributed to a highly asymmetric polarization distribution induced by their polar structure. We experimentally test this hypothesis by measuring optical second harmonic generati...

Strange metal behavior appears across a variety of condensed matter settings and beyond, and achieving a universal understanding is an exciting prospect. The beyond-Landau quantum criticality of Kondo destruction has had considerable success in describing the behavior of strange metal heavy fermion compounds, and there is some evidence that the ass...

Strange metal behavior appears across a variety of condensed matter settings and beyond, and achieving a universal understanding is an exciting prospect. The beyond-Landau quantum criticality of Kondo destruction has had considerable success in describing the behavior of strange metal heavy fermion compounds, and there is some evidence that the ass...

The fate of a Mott insulator under strong low frequency optical driving conditions is a fundamental problem in quantum many-body dynamics. Using ultrafast broadband optical spectroscopy, we measured the transient electronic structure and charge dynamics of an off-resonantly pumped Mott insulator Ca$_2$RuO$_4$. We observe coherent bandwidth renormal...

Understanding the time evolution of physical systems is crucial to revealing fundamental characteristics that are hidden in frequency domain. In optical science, high-quality resonance cavities and enhanced interactions with matters are at the heart of modern quantum technologies. However, capturing their time dynamics in real-world scenarios suffe...

In the superradiant phase transition (SRPT), coherent light and matter fields are expected to appear spontaneously in a coupled light–matter system in thermal equilibrium. However, such an equilibrium SRPT is forbidden in the case of charge-based light–matter coupling, known as no-go theorems. Here, we show that the low-temperature phase transition...

We present a physics-informed recurrent neural network to precisely forecast long time-domain signals from a wide range of terahertz resonance features using short input signals. This can accelerate the discovery of new physical phenomena.

Understanding the time evolution of physical systems is crucial to revealing fundamental characteristics that are hidden in frequency domain. In optical science, high-quality resonance cavities and enhanced interactions with matters are at the heart of modern quantum technologies. However, capturing their time dynamics in real-world scenarios suffe...

Significant understanding has been achieved over the last few decades regarding chirality-dependent properties of single-wall carbon nanotubes (SWCNTs), primarily through single-tube studies. However, macroscopic manifestations of chirality dependence have been limited, especially in electronic transport, despite the fact that such distinct behavio...

Exotic quantum vacuum phenomena are predicted in cavity quantum electrodynamics systems with ultrastrong light-matter interactions. Their ground states are predicted to be vacuum squeezed states with suppressed quantum fluctuations owing to antiresonant terms in the Hamiltonian. However, such predictions have not been realized because antiresonant...

Terahertz (THz) spectroscopy of solids in high magnetic fields can often provide new insight into the microscopic physics behind complex many-body behaviors [1].

Exotic quantum vacuum phenomena are predicted in cavity quantum electrodynamics (QED) systems with ultrastrong light-matter interactions. Their ground states are predicted to be vacuum squeezed states with suppressed quantum fluctuations. The source of such phenomena are antiresonant terms in the Hamiltonian, yet antiresonant interactions are typic...

We show that the low-temperature phase transition in ErFeO3 that occurs at a critical temperature of ~ 4 K can be described as a magnonic version of the superradiant phase transition (SRPT). The role of photons in the quantum-optical SRPT is played by Fe magnons, while that of two-level atoms is played by Er spins. Our spin model, which is reduced...

Single-walled carbon nanotubes (SWCNTs) exhibit many unique properties arising from their quantum confinement. However, the lack of a controllable large-scale alignment procedure had limited the exploration of their unique properties. Our recent work has overcome this problem by demonstrating a vacuum-filtration based technique to align SWCNTs on w...

We have observed photoinduced negative optical conductivity, or gain, in the terahertz frequency range in a GaAs multiple-quantum-well structure in a strong perpendicular magnetic field at low temperatures. The gain is narrow-band: it appears as a sharp peak (linewidth $<$0.45 meV) whose frequency shifts with applied magnetic field. The gain has a...

Spin-charge entanglement Many physical properties follow characteristic scaling laws near quantum critical points, which are associated with phase transitions at absolute zero temperature. The material YbRh 2 Si 2 has an antiferromagnetic quantum critical point, where spin-related properties are expected to follow such a scaling. Unexpectedly, Proc...

We studied magnon-magnon ultrastrong coupling in YFeO3 using terahertz magnetospectroscopy in magnetic fields up to 30 T, which led to an extreme breakdown of the rotating-wave approximation where the counter-rotating term dominates the co-rotating term.

We excited terahertz magnons in Er*Yi_*FeO3 as a function of temperature, magnetic field, and yttrium composition (x), providing insight into the role of cooperative Er ³⁺ -Fe ³⁺ exchange interactions in the low-temperature phase transition.

We report results of terahertz Faraday and Kerr rotation spectroscopy measurements on thin films of Bi1−xSbx, an alloy system that exhibits a semimetal-to-topological-insulator transition as the Sb composition x increases. By using a single-shot time-domain terahertz spectroscopy setup combined with a table-top pulsed minicoil magnet, we conducted...

We report results of terahertz Faraday and Kerr rotation spectroscopy measurements on thin films of $\text{Bi}_{1-x}\text{Sb}_{x}$, an alloy system that exhibits a semimetal-to-topological-insulator transition as the Sb composition $x$ increases. By using a single-shot time-domain terahertz spectroscopy setup combined with a table-top pulsed mini-c...

Refractory nanophotonics, or nanophotonics at high temperatures, can revolutionize many applications, including data storage and waste heat recovery. In particular, nanophotonic devices made from hyperbolic materials are promising due to their nearly infinite photonic density of states (PDOS). However, it is challenging to achieve a prominent PDOS...

Traditionally, strong-field physics explores phenomena in matter (atoms, molecules, and solids) driven by an extremely strong laser field nonperturbatively. However, even in the complete absence of an external electromagnetic field, strong-field phenomena can arise when matter strongly couples with the zero-point field of the quantum vacuum state,...

Traditionally, strong-field physics explores phenomena in matter (atoms, molecules, and solids) driven by an extremely strong laser field nonperturbatively. However, even in the complete absence of an external electromagnetic field, strong-field phenomena can arise when matter strongly couples with the zero-point field of the quantum vacuum state,...

Optical properties of single-wall carbon nanotubes (SWCNTs) for light polarized parallel to the nanotube axis have been studied extensively, whereas their response to light polarized perpendicular to the nanotube axis has not been well explored. Here, by using a macroscopic film of highly aligned single-chirality (6,5) SWCNTs, we performed a system...

We have performed time- and polarization-resolved optical-pump—terahertz-probe magnetospectroscopy measurements on a GaAs quantum well and observed narrow-band, polarization-selective THz gain, whose center frequency shifts with applied magnetic field.

Terahertz time-domain spectroscopy measurements performed in pulsed, high magnetic fields reveal ultrastrong coupling between quasi-antiferromagnetic and quasi-ferromagnetic magnon modes in the canted antiferromagnet, YFeO3.

We have studied the low-temperature (~4.5 K) phase transition of Er1–xYxFeO3 as a function of temperature, magnetic field, and Y composition (x) through terahertz time-domain spectroscopy and created an experimental phase diagram.

Single-wall carbon nanotubes (SWCNTs) exhibit a wide range of physical phenomena depending on their chirality. Nanotube networks typically contain a broad mixture of chiralities, which prevents an in-depth understanding of SWCNT ensemble properties. In particular, electronic-type mixing (the simultaneous presence of semiconductor and metallic nanot...

The capability to design, fabricate, and optimize metamaterials based on various structures and material platforms has been crucial for the rapid development of modern terahertz (THz) technology. While the detailed structures of artificial unit cells within a metamaterial is certainly worth investigating, there has been increasing demand to integra...

Optical properties of single-wall carbon nanotubes (SWCNTs) for light polarized parallel to the nanotube axis have been extensively studied, whereas their response to light polarized perpendicular to the nanotube axis has not been well explored. Here, by using a macroscopic film of highly aligned single-chirality (6,5) SWCNTs, we performed a system...

Strange metal behavior is ubiquitous to correlated materials ranging from cuprate superconductors to bilayer graphene. There is increasing recognition that it arises from physics beyond the quantum fluctuations of a Landau order parameter which, in quantum critical heavy fermion antiferromagnets, may be realized as critical Kondo entanglement of sp...

The electrical behaviors under mechanical deformation of an aligned single-walled carbon nanotube (SWCNT) film nanocomposite have been systematically investigated in this work. Electrical signals along CNT axis (∥) and perpendicular to CNT axis (⊥) follow a specific pattern, which enables the mechanical motion to be determined by vector analysis of...

Non-perturbative coupling of photons and excitons produces hybrid particles, exciton–polaritons, which have exhibited a variety of many-body phenomena in various microcavity systems. However, the vacuum Rabi splitting (VRS), which defines the strength of photon–exciton coupling, is usually a single constant for a given system. Here, we have develop...

There is presently much interest in tunable, flexible, or reconfigurable metamaterial structures that work in the terahertz frequency range. They can be useful for a range of applications, including spectroscopy, sensing, imaging, and communications. Various methods based on microelectromechanical systems have been used for fabricating terahertz me...

We demonstrate the existence of exceptional points in the dispersion of microcavity exciton polaritons, originating from the polarization-controlled ultrastrong coupling of 1D excitons in aligned single-chirality single-wall carbon nanotubes with microcavity photons.

We have performed terahertz time-domain magneto-spectroscopy measurements on canted antiferromagnet YFeO3 in pulsed high magnetic fields up to 30 T, observing coherent magnon oscillations and frequency splitting.

Terahertz spectroscopy of Landau polaritons reveals a shift induced by the ultrastrong coupling of cyclotron-orbiting electrons with the counter-rotating component of the vacuum fluctuation field, evidencing the breakdown of the rotating wave approximation.

Electron–hole pairing can occur in a dilute semimetal, transforming the system into an excitonic insulator state in which a gap spontaneously appears at the Fermi surface, analogous to a Bardeen–Cooper–Schrieffer (BCS) superconductor. Here, we report optical spectroscopic and electronic transport evidence for the formation of an excitonic insulator...

We demonstrate a simple and cost-effective method for fabricating silver-nanoparticle metamaterial structures on a flexible substrate based on inkjet printing. Specifically, we used inkjet printing with an ordinary printer to obtain an array of split-ring resonators (SRRs) on a sheet of paper. We designed the SRR array to exhibit a resonance in the...

The collective interaction of electrons with light in a high-quality-factor cavity is expected to reveal new quantum phenomena and find applications in quantum-enabled technologies. However, combining a long electronic coherence time, a large dipole moment, and a high quality-factor has proved difficult. Here, we achieved these conditions simultane...

Nonperturbative coupling of light with condensed matter in an optical cavity is expected to reveal a host of coherent many-body phenomena and states. In addition, strong coherent light-matter interaction in a solid-state environment is of great interest to emerging quantum-based technologies. However, creating a system that combines a long electron...

Nonperturbative coupling of light with condensed matter in an optical cavity is expected to reveal a host of coherent many-body phenomena and states. In addition, strong coherent light-matter interaction in a solid-state environment is of great interest to emerging quantum-based technologies. However, creating a system that combines a long electron...

We simultaneously excited an antiferromagnetic magnon and crystal-field transitions (CFTs) in a b-cut ErFeO3 single crystal at low temperatures using terahertz pulses. We observe magnon-CFT hybridization as anticrossing behavior as a function of magnetic field.

Tunably controlling waveguide behaviors are always desirable for various kinds of applications. In this work, we theoretically propose the possibility to realize a tunable high-pass waveguide by magnetically controlling magnetorheological fluids inside. Through computer simulations and numerical calculations, we find that the low-pass or high-pass...