Floquet–Bloch manipulation of the Dirac gap in a topological antiferromagnet

Nina Bielinski, Rajas Chari, Julian May-Mann, Soyeun Kim, Jack Zwettler, Yujun Deng, Anuva Aishwarya, Subhajit Roychowdhury, Chandra Shekhar, Makoto Hashimoto, Donghui Lu, Jiaqiang Yan, Claudia Felser, Vidya Madhavan, Zhi Xun Shen, Taylor L. Hughes, Fahad Mahmood

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

Abstract

Floquet–Bloch manipulation, achieved by driving a material periodically with a laser pulse, is a method that enables the engineering of electronic and magnetic phases in solids by effectively modifying the structure of their electronic bands. However, the application of Floquet–Bloch manipulation in topological magnetic systems, particularly those with inherent disorder, remains largely unexplored. Here we realize Floquet–Bloch manipulation of the Dirac surface-state mass of the topological antiferromagnet MnBi2Te4. Using time- and angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy, we show that opposite helicities of mid-infrared circularly polarized light result in substantially different Dirac mass gaps in the antiferromagnetic phase, despite the equilibrium Dirac cone being massless. We explain our findings in terms of a Dirac fermion with a random mass. Our results underscore Floquet–Bloch manipulation as a powerful tool for controlling topology, even in the presence of disorder, and for uncovering properties of materials that may elude conventional probes.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Article number13940
Pages (from-to)458-463
Number of pages6
JournalNature Physics
Volume21
Issue number3
Early online dateJan 21 2025
DOIs
StatePublished - Mar 2025

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • General Physics and Astronomy

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