2024/11/05 by Arpit Arora, Arora, Arpit, Jonathan B. Curtis +3 · 2 citations
Physics and Astronomy · #Advanced Frequency and Time Standards #Cold Atom Physics and Bose-Einstein Condensates #FOS: Physical sciences #Physics of Superconductivity and Magnetism #Superconductivity (cond-mat.supr-con)
paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.2411.03437
openalex publication_date 2024/11/05 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/29
Photo-control of correlated phases is central to advancing and manipulating novel functional properties of quantum materials. Here, we explore microwave enhancement of superconductivity in flat bands through generation of nonequilibrium quasiparticles at subgap frequencies. In conventional superconductors, it is known to occur via radiation absorption determined by fermi velocity, which however is small in flat bands resulting in quenched quasiparticle excitations. Strikingly, in contrast to the conventional paradigm we show a non-vanishing microwave absorption in flat band systems enabled by Bloch quantum geometry leading to superconducting gap enhancement, underscoring the band-geometric origin of nonequilibrium flat band superconductivity. Specifically, we demonstrate this in twisted bilayer graphene, a promising candidate material, and find significant gap enhancement near critical temperature. This work highlights that the nonequilibrium dynamics of materials with non-trivial flat bands as a promising area for future experimental and theoretical investigation.