Nature Physics, Published online: 26 June 2026; doi:10.1038/s41567-026-03340-1
The electronic structure of materials can be tailored using pulses of light, and through this so-called Floquet engineering, novel materials can be designed. Now, the technique has been used to create light-induced metallic surface states in the band gap of a semiconductor — transforming the material, transiently, into a topological insulator.
