Photo-induced quantum Hall insulators without Landau levels

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Abstract
We propose a mechanism to dynamically control quantum transport in a class of semi-metals, such as graphene and topological insulators, via the application of light. In contrast to a conventional effect of light where photons induce current carriers by exciting electrons, we focus on the effect of circularly polarized light which dresses band structures and induces an effective gap in semi-metals. We analyze the transport properties of the resulting photo-induced non-equilibrium systems and show that graphene and surfaces of topological insulators exhibit insulating behaviors. Remarkably, these systems also exhibit quantum Hall effects in the absence of a magnetic field with a near quantization of the Hall conductance, realizing so-called quantum Hall systems without Landau levels.

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