MIT Scientists Build Terahertz Microscope That Reveals Hidden Superconducting Motion
Arthur T Knackerbracket writes:
A team of physicists at MIT has managed to do something long thought impossible: peer into the ultrafast, quantum-scale motion of superconducting electrons. Using a microscope built around pulses of terahertz light - radiation oscillating trillions of times per second - they've captured a kind of atomic dance that has remained hidden until now.
The implications of the breakthrough could ripple through multiple industries. A better understanding of how superconductivity behaves at quantum scales could accelerate the development of room-temperature superconductors, radically improving electrical grids, quantum computers, and magnetic levitation systems.
The underlying terahertz technology itself - capable of transmitting and detecting signals at unprecedented speeds - could shape the future of wireless communications, sensing devices, and ultrafast data transfer for next-generation electronics.
The development, described in Nature, centers on bismuth strontium calcium copper oxide (BSCCO), a copper-based superconductor known for carrying electricity without resistance at relatively high temperatures.
When hit with precisely tuned terahertz bursts, the electrons inside the material began to move collectively, vibrating in unison at the same frequencies as the light itself. MIT physicist Nuh Gedik calls this previously unseen motion "a new mode of superconducting electrons."
The feat was accomplished using a terahertz microscope capable of compressing radiation that typically stretches hundreds of microns long down to the tiny scale of a quantum material. Terahertz radiation sits between microwaves and infrared on the electromagnetic spectrum, an energy range considered a sweet spot for imaging because it's non-ionizing, penetrates deeply, and matches the natural oscillation rate of atoms and electrons.
Yet until now, it's been all but useless for imaging small structures because of a fundamental barrier called the diffraction limit - light can't be focused to a spot smaller than its own wavelength.
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