Special QM Seminar

Is it feasible to alter the ground state properties of a material by engineering its electromagnetic environment? In this work, we devised and implemented a novel platform to realize cavity-altered materials. We interfaced hexagonal boron nitride (hBN) with the molecular superconductor κ-(BEDT-TTF)2Cu[N(CN)2]Br (κ-ET). The frequencies of infrared (IR) hyperbolic modes of hBN match the IR-active carbon-carbon stretching molecular resonance of κ-ET implicated in superconductivity. Nano-optical data confirm the presence of resonant coupling between the hBN hyperbolic cavity modes and the carbon-carbon stretching mode in κ-ET. Meissner effect measurements via magnetic force microscopy (MFM) demonstrate a strong suppression of superfluid density near the hBN/κ-ET interface. These observations suggest that hBN/κ-ET realizes a cavity-altered superconducting ground state. Our work highlights the potential of dark cavities devoid of external photons for engineering electronic ground state properties of complex quantum material.