Photo-excited State Dynamics and Non-equilibrium States under Laser in Van der Waals Stacked Two-dimensional Materials

2026-07-22

The project of “PeSD-NeSL” is a fundamental and scientific project that will be carried out by Dr. Jin Zhang under the supervision of Prof. Angel Rubio. Dr. Zhang is a theoretical scientist with extensive experience and good publication records in the field of laser-excited carrier and structural dynamics. Prof. Rubio is the managing director of the Theory Department of MPSD and one of the leading experts in fields of ab initio calculations of electron excitations and dynamics in Physics, Chemistry, and Biophysics. This project will also involve collaborations with top international experimental and theoretical groups. The proposed project “PeSD-NeSL” is focusing on the non-equilibrium states and dynamics under laser in van der Waals (vdW) stacked materials, including carrier multiplications, light-induced Moiré engineering, interlayer Moiré exciton, light-induced insulator-metal phase transition among others. The intriguing processes provide a strong motivation for studying microscopic details of optical responses in vdW materials upon laser excitation. The underneath microscopic interactions among photon, electron, exciton, phonon and other quasi-particles are crucial and far from being clearly understood as they relate to the macroscopic quantum phenomena. We will perform state-of-the-art numerical experiments in three parts: Part 1. Carrier multiplications in two-dimensional monolayers and vdW heterostructures; Part 2. Light-induced Moiré engineering and Moiré excitons in vdW bilayers; Part 3. Photoinduced phase dynamics and non-equilibrium states in TMD layers. We aim to establish a clear relationship between microscopic interactions and macroscopic quantum phenomena in low-dimensional materials under field perturbations. The success of “PeSD-NeSL” will consolidate the leadership of MPSD group in condensed matter physics, material science, and nanoscience, and create more advanced and effective methodological tools for other scientists in related fields.

Germany

2026-02-15