• Accepted Paper

Optical switching of two-dimensional charge-density-wave chirality

Wayne Cheng-Wei Huang, Sai Mu, Gevin von Witte, Yanshuo Sophie Li, Felix Kurtz, Sheng-Hsiung Hung, Horng-Tay Jeng, Kai Rossnagel, Jan Gerrit Horstmann, and Claus Ropers

Phys. Rev. X - Accepted 23 October, 2026

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/vlh4-qgrz

Abstract

Tailored optical excitations can steer a system along non-equilibrium pathways into metastable states with distinct structural and electronic properties. The light-induced hidden state of 1T-TaS2, with its strongly enhanced conductivity and exceptionally long lifetime, represents a unique model system for studying ultrafast switching of correlated electronic states. Using surface-sensitive electron diffraction in combination with a femtosecond optical quench, we reveal the coexistence of both mirror-related two-dimensional charge-density-wave (CDW) chiralities as a structural characteristic of the hidden state. Density functional theory (DFT) simulations of interfaces between domains of opposite CDW chirality predict a higher-level, fractal-type moir'{e} superstructure with a kagome band structure near the Fermi energy. More broadly, these findings identify heterochiral CDW interfaces as an additional structural degree of freedom, expanding the possibilities for engineering electronic properties through twist-angle control.

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