Altered Ground States via van der Waals Cavities

Recent advances show that embedding solids within electromagnetic cavities can modify the ground state even in the absence of illumination. Hyperbolic van der Waals (vdW) materials, which provide dielectric environments with strongly enhanced photonic density of states, have recently emerged as a candidate platform for realizing such cavity effects in heterostructures. In this talk, I will present the first experimental realization of a cavity-coupled superconducting ground state, spatially resolved by magnetic force microscopy. This implemantation, utilizes a vdW material (hBN) as the cavity. Molecular resonances in the superconductor hybridize with the hyperbolic cavity modes to produce an altered ground state, which is probed by magnetic force microscopy. I will also discuss how new cavity architectures could offer previously inaccessible control over the interaction between the cavity and the target material. Together, these approaches outline a pathway toward tailoring cavity-coupled ground states.