  Managing light-matter interactions on timescales faster than the loss of
electronic coherence is key for achieving full quantum control of the final
products in solid-solid transformations. In this work, we demonstrate coherent
electronic control of the photoinduced insulator-to-metal transition in the
prototypical Mott insulator V$_2$O$_3$. Selective excitation of a specific
interband transition with two phase-locked light pulses manipulates the orbital
occupation of the correlated bands in a way that depends on the coherent
evolution of the photoinduced superposition of states. A comparison between
experimental results and numerical solutions of the optical Bloch equations
provides an electronic coherence time on the order of 5 fs.
Temperature-dependent experiments suggest that the electronic coherence time is
enhanced in the vicinity of the insulator-to-metal transition critical
temperature, thus highlighting the role of fluctuations in determining the
electronic coherence. These results open new routes to selectively switch the
functionalities of quantum materials and coherently control solid-solid
electronic transformations.
