Understanding and harnessing complex interactions to create emergent atomic- to micro-scale structures and functionalities that are not accessible through linear or equilibrium processes. Such outcomes often arise when a process step nonlinearly modifies a material, thereby changing its response to subsequent iterations, so that repeated applications yield qualitatively new outcomes. We further seek to understand how to achieve desired emergent characteristics by controlling a small set of external parameters along non-equilibrium pathways across temporal, spatial, and energy scales.
Fig.: Laser pulses repeatedly interact with a material surface. Each pulse nonlinearly induces nanoscale modifications that alter the response of the surface to the subsequent pulses, creating an intrinsic nonlinear feedback that iteratively builds a complex macroscopic pattern, controlled via only a small number of external parameters. Figure taken from: https://arxiv.org/abs/2503.23474