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  • Open Access

Exploring Light-Induced Phases of 2D Materials in a Modulated 1D Quasicrystal

Yifei Bai, Anna R. Dardia, Toshihiko Shimasaki, and David M. Weld*

  • *Contact author: weld@ucsb.edu
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Phys. Rev. X 16, 011036 – Published 25 February, 2026

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/37vk-qz71

Abstract

Light-induced quantum phases offer the potential for simple and powerful tuning of material properties. For example, simply illuminating 2D materials in the integer quantum Hall regime with polarized light is predicted to drive quantum phase transitions. Such phenomena are largely beyond the current frontier of solid state experiments due to technical limitations on laser intensity and material purity. However, the Harper-Hofstadter mapping which relates a two-dimensional integer quantum Hall system to a 1D quasicrystal enables the same polarization-dependent light-induced phase transitions to be observed using a quantum gas in a driven quasiperiodic optical lattice. We report results of such an experiment. We observe an interlaced phase diagram of localization-delocalization phase transitions as a function of drive polarization and amplitude. Elliptically polarized driving can stabilize an extended critical phase featuring multifractal wave functions; we observe signatures of this phenomenon in anomalous polarization-dependent subdiffusive transport. In this regime, increasing the strength of the quasiperiodic potential can enhance rather than suppress transport. These experiments demonstrate a simple method for synthesizing exotic multifractal states and exploring light-induced quantum phases across different dimensionalities.

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Connections between systems of different dimensionality form a recurring motif in the study of quantum matter. We apply the Harper-Hofstadter mapping to experimentally connect modulated one-dimensional quasicrystals and two-dimensional integer quantum Hall systems illuminated by polarized light. This approach enables us to use a one-dimensional cold-atom quantum gas to study polarization-dependent light-induced phase transitions in two-dimensional topological matter at effective field intensities difficult to reach in laser-driven solids. We observe an interlaced phase diagram of metal-insulator transitions coherently controlled by the polarization of the driving light and reveal that elliptically polarized driving can stabilize an extended regime of multifractal wave functions without fine-tuning. We demonstrate a simple method for synthesizing exotic multifractal states and exploring light-induced quantum phases across different dimensionalities.

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Phys. Rev. X 16, 011036– Published 25 February, 2026
  • Received 13 August 2025
  • Accepted 9 January 2026
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Published by the American Physical Society under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license. Further distribution of this work must maintain attribution to the author(s) and the published article’s title, journal citation, and DOI.

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