Ultrafast switch for superconductors
Wednesday, July 6, 2011 - 04:00
in Physics & Chemistry
(PhysOrg.com) -- A high-temperature superconductor can now be switched on and off within a trillionth of a second 100 years after the discovery of superconductivity and 25 years after the first high-temperature superconductor was. A team including physicists from the University of Oxford and the Max Planck Research Group for Structural Dynamics at the University of Hamburg has realised an ultrafast superconducting switch by using intense terahertz pulses. This experiment opens up the possibility to discover more about the still unsettled cause of this type of superconductivity, and also hints at possible applications for ultrafast electronics in the future.