{"id":238389,"date":"2026-06-05T02:18:27","date_gmt":"2026-06-05T07:18:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2026\/06\/photoexcitation-flips-2d-moire-devices-from-metals-to-insulators-in-ultrafast-test"},"modified":"2026-06-05T02:18:27","modified_gmt":"2026-06-05T07:18:27","slug":"photoexcitation-flips-2d-moire-devices-from-metals-to-insulators-in-ultrafast-test","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2026\/06\/photoexcitation-flips-2d-moire-devices-from-metals-to-insulators-in-ultrafast-test","title":{"rendered":"Photoexcitation flips 2D moir\u00e9 devices from metals to insulators in ultrafast test"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a class=\"aligncenter blog-photo\" href=\"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog.images\/photoexcitation-flips-2d-moire-devices-from-metals-to-insulators-in-ultrafast-test.jpg\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Quantum materials, materials with properties that are governed by the laws of quantum mechanics describing many-body interactions, have proved promising for the development of various advanced technologies. Many of these materials undergo so-called phase transitions, switching between different physical states that alter how electrons flow through them.<\/p>\n<p>Some previous studies have demonstrated the transition from insulating states to metallic states in quantum materials, via a process called photoexcitation (i.e., the excitation of electrons using light). Yet the opposite transition, from metallic to insulating states, has so far proved difficult to realize using light alone.<\/p>\n<p>Researchers at Columbia University, in collaboration with UC Riverside, recently demonstrated an ultrafast photo-induced metal-to-insulator transition in two-dimensional (2D) moir\u00e9 heterostructures, quantum materials consisting of 2D layers stacked on top of each other, with a slight misalignment between them.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Quantum materials, materials with properties that are governed by the laws of quantum mechanics describing many-body interactions, have proved promising for the development of various advanced technologies. Many of these materials undergo so-called phase transitions, switching between different physical states that alter how electrons flow through them. Some previous studies have demonstrated the transition from [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":427,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1635,1617],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-238389","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-materials","category-quantum-physics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/238389","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/427"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=238389"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/238389\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=238389"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=238389"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=238389"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}