It may be a bit of science fiction at this point, but one possibility, according to Gedik, is using this technology to spatially pattern the light excitation which could lead to devices with customized geometries. To get there, he says, “We need to do this basic work, which is to understand what these states are and how they interact with other states.” Mahmood continues to study how long it takes for these Floquet states to form and to disappear. “All of this needs to be understood before we can move onto there,” Gedik says.
Work also remains to be done to understand how the electrons relax down from the Floquet states. It is especially important to understand how they interact with other states inside the solid such as vibrations of the lattice called phonons or collective excitations of the electrons called plasmons.
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