About

Edoardo Baldini is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Physics at the University of Texas at Austin. His primary research interest is the study of emergent phenomena in quantum materials. In his group, researchers develop sensitive spectroscopic techniques to uncover new quantum phases of matter in and out of equilibrium. They engineer tailored laser pulses across a wide spectral range to control materials properties on ultrashort timescales and achieve exotic functionalities for future quantum technology. His team is involved with experimental condensed matter physics, the discovery and nonequilibrium control of quantum phases of matter, ultrafast laser science, and light-matter interaction.

Research topics

• Physics
• Quantum mechanics
• Condensed matter physics
• Materials science
• Geometry
• Chemical physics
• Mathematics
• Optoelectronics
• Atomic physics

Selected publications

• Resonant chiral dressing by amplitude fluctuations in a ferroaxial electronic crystal

  Nature Physics · 2026-05-01

  articleSenior author
  PublisherDOI

• Six-state clock physics in an atomically thin antiferromagnet

  Nature Materials · 2026-02-23

  articleSenior authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

• Ultrafast Formation of Jahn–Teller Polarons Revealed by State-Selective Excitation in Correlated Spinel Co ₃ O ₄

  Journal of the American Chemical Society · 2026-04-01

  articleOpen access

  Jahn–Teller polarons are quasiparticles that stem from symmetry breaking and strong local electron–phonon coupling. They originate from an excess charge carrier being dressed by a local lattice distortion, caused by the Jahn–Teller effect, and they critically impact electrical, structural, and magnetic properties in transition metal oxides. The observation of the microscopic steps involved in their formation is essential for enabling control over material properties through the targeted activation of local, site-specific modifications with light pulses. While Jahn–Teller distortion associated with polaron formation was predicted to contribute significantly to changes in electronic band gap and optical properties in Co3O4, its experimental observation remains elusive, requiring signatures of local symmetry reduction. In this work, we demonstrate Jahn–Teller polaron formation in spinel Co3O4. By exciting electronic transitions at 3.10 eV and 1.55 eV, we target either the Oh Cobalt(III) or the Td Cobalt(II) ions, and drive the subsequent coherent responses of the system through two different pathways. For the former, we demonstrate that ligand-to-metal charge transfer leads to Jahn–Teller polaron formation, which is linked to the deformation potential and magnetoelastic coupling. For the latter, we identify the coherent excitation of a T2g phonon mode launched by on-site d-d electronic transitions. Key to our observations is the ability to target site-specific electronic excitations in spinel Co3O4 using ultrafast optical pulses, while monitoring the ensuing low-energy collective modes through the coherent time-domain response of the material. Our approach, which combines the comparative analysis of experimental fingerprints with the support from density functional theory calculations, is broadly applicable to systems in which Jahn–Teller polaron physics has been theoretically predicted but remains experimentally unverified, and it underscores the potential of electronic-state targeting as a route to selectively excite and probe quasiparticle dynamics in solids.

  PublisherDOI

• Dataset of "Ultrafast Formation of Jahn-Teller Polarons Revealed by State-Selective Excitation in Correlated Spinel Co3O4"

  Zenodo (CERN European Organization for Nuclear Research) · 2026-03-04

  datasetOpen access

  The zip file contains the data used for generating the figures reported in the article. Data are divided in subfolders for figures in the main and in the supplementary materials.

  PublisherDOI

• Dataset of "Ultrafast Formation of Jahn-Teller Polarons Revealed by State-Selective Excitation in Correlated Spinel Co3O4"

  Zenodo (CERN European Organization for Nuclear Research) · 2026-03-04

  datasetOpen access

  The zip file contains the data used for generating the figures reported in the article. Data are divided in subfolders for figures in the main and in the supplementary materials.

  PublisherDOI

• Electromagnon signatures of a metastable multiferroic state

  ArXiv.org · 2025-02-14

  preprintOpen access

  Magnetoelectric multiferroic materials, particularly type-II multiferroics where ferroelectric polarizations arise from magnetic order, offer significant potential for the simultaneous control of magnetic and electric properties. However, it remains an open question as to how the multiferroic ground states are stabilized on the free-energy landscape in the presence of intricate competition between the magnetoelectric coupling and thermal fluctuations. In this work, by using terahertz time-domain spectroscopy in combination with an applied magnetic field, photoexcitation, and single-shot detection, we reveal the spectroscopic signatures of a magnetic-field-induced metastable multiferroic state in a hexaferrite. This state remains robust until thermal influences cause the sample to revert to the original paraelectric state. Our findings shed light on the emergence of metastable multiferroicity and its interplay with thermal dynamics.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Anyonic Chern insulator in graphene induced by surface electromagnon vacuum fluctuations

  ArXiv.org · 2025-11-13

  preprintOpen access

  Sub-wavelength cavities have emerged as a promising platform to realize strong light-matter coupling in condensed matter systems. Previous studies are limited to dielectric sub-wavelength cavities, which preserve time-reversal symmetry. Here, we lift this constraint by proposing a cavity system based on magneto-electric materials, which host surface electromagnons with non-orthogonal electric field and magnetic field components. The quantum fluctuations of the surface electromagnons drive a nearby graphene monolayer into an anyonic Chern insulator, characterized by anyonic quasi-particles and a topological gap that decays polynomially with the graphene-substrate distance. Our work opens a path to controllably break time-reversal symmetry and induce exotic quantum states through cavity vacuum fluctuations.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Dispersive dark excitons in van der Waals ferromagnet CrI3

  ArXiv.org · 2025-01-16 · 1 citations

  preprintOpen access

  Spin-flip dark excitons are optical-dipole-forbidden quasiparticles with remarkable potential in optoelectronics, especially when they are realized within cleavable van der Waals materials. Despite this potential, dark excitons have not yet been definitively identified in ferromagnetic van der Waals materials. Here, we report two dark excitons in a model ferromagnetic material CrI3 using high-resolution resonant inelastic x-ray scattering (RIXS) and show that they feature narrower linewidths compared to the bright excitons previously reported in this material. These excitons are shown to have spin-flip character, to disperse as a function of momentum, and to change through the ferromagnetic transition temperature. Given the versatility of van der Waals materials, these excitons hold promise for new types of magneto-optical functionality.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Nonresonant Raman Control of Ferroelectric Polarization

  Advanced Materials · 2025-08-25 · 3 citations

  article

  Important advances is recently made in the search for materials with complex multi-phase landscapes that host photoinduced metastable collective states with exotic functionalities. In almost all cases so far, the desired phases are accessed by exploiting light-matter interactions via the imaginary part of the dielectric function through above-bandgap or resonant mode excitation. Nonresonant Raman excitation of coherent modes is experimentally observed and proposed for dynamic material control, but the resulting atomic excursion is limited to perturbative levels. Here, this challenge is overcome by employing nonresonant ultrashort pulses with low photon energies well below the bandgap. Using mid-infrared pulses, ferroelectric reversal is induced in lithium niobate, and the large-amplitude mode displacements are characterized through femtosecond stimulated Raman scattering and second harmonic generation. This approach, validated by first-principle calculations, defines a novel method for synthesizing hidden phases with unique functional properties and manipulating complex energy landscapes at reduced energy consumption and ultrafast speeds.

  PublisherDOI

• Controlling magnetization dynamics in a single step

  Nature Photonics · 2025-06-01

  article1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

Frequent coauthors

• Ángel Rubio

  Flatiron Health (United States)

  53 shared

• Nuh Gedik

  Massachusetts Institute of Technology

  29 shared

• Keith A. Nelson

  28 shared

• Fabrizio Carbone

  École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne

  22 shared

• Majed Chergui

  22 shared

• Alfred Zong

  21 shared

• Frank Y. Gao

  The University of Texas at Austin

  20 shared

• Tania Palmieri

  École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne

  15 shared

Labs

• Baldini LabPI

Education

• Ph.D., Department of Physics

  École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne

  2017

• M.Sc., Quantum Electronics

  Università degli Studi di Pavia

  2012

• B.Sc., Electronic Engineering

  Università degli Studi di Pavia

  2010

Awards & honors

• ICO-IUPAP Early Career Prize in Optics (2026)
• Ludwig Genzel Prize (2025)
• Sloan Research Fellowship (2025)
• NSF CAREER Award (2025)
• AFOSR Young Investigator Program Award (2024)