Light-induced Superconductivity

Researchers from the Cavalleri group report in PNAS that superconducting ‘stripes’ in certain copper-based compounds may lead to a break in the material’s crystal symmetry, thus resulting in anomalous emission of terahertz radiation. more

MPSD researchers discover a long-lived superconducting state in K₃C₆₀ at a temperature five times higher than the one at which superconductivity sets in without photoexcitation. This metastable state, produced with a new type of laser, lasts nearly 10.000 times longer than previously achieved. more

Researchers from the MPSD and the University of Oxford manage to drive a prototypical antiferromagnet into a new magnetic state, using terahertz frequency light. Their groundbreaking method produces an effect orders of magnitude larger than previously achieved - on ultrafast time scales. more