MPSD News

Researchers at the Max-Planck-Institute for the Structure and Dynamics of Matter (MPSD) and partner institutes have developed a general and experimentally realistic method to create square-lattice moiré materials by twisting two-dimensional semiconductors with rectangular unit cells by 90 degrees. This simple geometric recipe produces moiré patterns with square symmetry and flat, isolated electronic bands that map onto a tunable square-lattice Hubbard model—the theoretical framework underpinning magnetism and high-temperature superconductivity. The approach works across a broad class of materials and offers powerful knobs to explore correlated-electron phases in a clean, gate-tunable platform. more

Three Directors of the Max Planck Institute for the Structure and Dynamics of Matter (MPSD), Angel Rubio, Jie Shan and Kin Fai have been selected as Highly Cited Researchers 2025 by Clarivate. more

Quantum materials are a fascinating platform for future technologies, as they host a variety of exotic phenomena beyond the reach of classical physics. Among them, van der Waals heterostructures stand out: They are created by stacking different two-dimensional layers that can be only one atom thick. These structures are remarkably easy to manipulate, offering unprecedented tunability and a vast realm for exploration. A team from the Max-Planck-Institute for the Structure and Dynamics of Matter (MPSD) and Columbia University has found that van der Waals heterostructures can naturally serve as cavities for long-wavelength terahertz (THz) light. This work has been published in Nature Physics. more

Metal oxides are abundant in nature and central to technologies such as photocatalysis and photovoltaics. Yet, many suffer from poor electrical conduction, caused by strong repulsion between electrons in neighboring metal atoms. Researchers of the Max Planck Institute for the Structure and Dynamics of Matter (MPSD), Helmholtz-Zentrum Berlin (HZB) and partner institutions have shown that light pulses can temporarily weaken these repulsive forces, lowering the energy required for electrons mobility, inducing a metal-like behavior. This discovery, now published in Science Advances, offers a new way to manipulate material properties with light, and holds great potential for more efficient light-based devices. more

Researchers at the Max Planck Institute for the Structure and Dynamics of Matter (MPSD), in collaboration with international partners, have developed momentum-resolved Floquet optical selection rules. They show how these symmetry-based rules determine the spectral weight distributions of photon-dressed sidebands in time- and angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy (TrARPES) experiments across different pump-probe configurations. This fundamental work has now been published in Science Advances. more

Researchers at the Max Planck Institute for the Structure and Dynamics of Matter (MPSD) have theoretically demonstrated that photons trapped inside an optical cavity carry detailed information about a material placed within it. By measuring properties of the photons leaking out of the cavity, researchers can probe how an optical cavity modifies the properties of the embedded materials. This insight opens new possibilities for experimental techniques to explore entangled light-matter systems. Their work has been published in Physical Review Letters. more

Researchers at the Max Planck Institute for the Structure and Dynamics of Matter (MPSD) and MIT have successfully created a new, long-lasting magnetic state in an antiferromagnetic material using only light. This breakthrough holds significant promise for advancing information processing and memory chip technology. The team reports the direct stimulation of atoms in an antiferromagnetic material with a terahertz laser—a light source oscillating more than a trillion times per second. By tuning the laser’s frequency to match the natural vibrations of the material’s atoms, they induced an ultrafast change in the atomic structure, ultimately driving the system into a novel magnetic state. Their work has been published in Nature. more

Angel Rubio, Director of the Theory Department at the Max Planck Institute for the Structure and Dynamics of Matter (MPSD) and Managing Director of the Institute, has been recognized as a Highly Cited Researcher 2024 by Clarivate. Joining him on this prestigious list are Jie Shan and Kin Fai Mak from Cornell University, all three of them are Principal Investigators at the Max Planck - New York Center for Non-Equilibrium Quantum Phenomena. These researchers have demonstrated broad and lasting influence, with their publications ranking in the top 1% for citations over the past decade. more

Researchers at the Max Planck Institute for the Structure and Dynamics of Matter have made a groundbreaking advancement in light-controlled superconductivity, demonstrating that superconducting properties can be enhanced by coupling materials with quantum light in optical cavities. This study uses magnesium diboride (MgB₂), a well-known phonon-mediated superconductor, and employs state-of-the-art quantum electrodynamical density-functional theory (QEDFT) to reveal how photon vacuum fluctuations inside an optical cavity can increase its superconducting transition temperature. more

The renewed funding comes from Columbia University, the Flatiron Institute, the MPSD and the Max Planck Institute for Polymer Research in Mainz, Germany. The New York Center will also expand to include Cornell University as a new partner institution. more