Inducing Room-Temperature Superconductivity: New Opportunities Brought up by Research Using Light
To study superconducting materials in their “normal,” non-superconducting state, scientists usually switch off superconductivity by exposing the material to a magnetic field (left). SLAC scientists discovered that turning off superconductivity with a flash of light (right), produces a normal state with very similar fundamental physics that is also unstable and demonstrates brief flashes of...