Terahertz Light-Quantum-Tuning of a Metastable Correlated Phase Hidden by Superconductivity

X. Yang, Chirag Vaswani, Chris Sundahl +8 more

Martin Mootz, I. E. Perakis, Jigang Wang

Martin Mootz, I. E. Perakis, Jigang Wang

Mohammad Alidoust, Klaus Halterman, Jacob Linder

Viktoria Yursa, Igor Vaskivskyi, Anze Mraz +7 more

The quest for superconductivity created by light extends for more than half a century, yet direct evidence of a true zero-resistance state - whose macroscopic quantum phase coherence is both created and controlled by light - has remained elusive. Here we report for the first time on a complex but robust light-programmable superconducting (LiPS) state at an aluminium-silicon heterojunction that is created and fully controlled with femtosecond laser pulses. The superconducting critical temperatures - ranging from 1.8 to 8.5 K, can be increased or erased at will by the application of tailored pulse sequences. At low temperatures the LiPS state shows features characteristic of a Berezinski-Kosterlitz-Thouless topological transition, but another distinct state appears at temperatures above 2 K, which shows clear signatures of quantum phase disorder. In the presence of a magnetic field we observe behaviour characteristic of vortex pinning and creep consistent with the 2-dimensional (2D) nature of the phase coherent system. The origin of the LiPS effect is attributed to light pulse control of the Moire-like superlattice of misfit dislocations (MDs) arising from discommensurations between the Al and Si lattices which is visible by high-resolution electron microscopy. We show how light pulses can be used to control the superlattice periodicity and highlight the appearance of topologically protected soliton-like kinks along the dislocation lines, important for imparting controllable metastability to the system. The demonstration of LiPS paves the way for designing metastable superconducting devices with controllable phase-coherence, enabling applications such as light-engineered quantum circuits, local gap tuning in quantum processors, and optically switchable superconducting devices.

V. P. Koshelets, Andrey B. Ermakov, Lyudmila V. Filippenko +10 more

A Superconducting Integrated Receiver (SIR) comprises on one chip all elements needed for heterodyne detection. Light weight and low power consumption combined with nearly quantum limited sensitivity and a wide tuning range of the superconducting local oscillator make SIR a perfect candidate for many practical applications.