European Scientists Observe Room-Temperature Supersolid, Tunable Up to 60C
Updated
Updated · Interesting Engineering · Nov 6
European Scientists Observe Room-Temperature Supersolid, Tunable Up to 60C
3 articles · Updated · Interesting Engineering · Nov 6
Summary
A European team observed a supersolid quantum state in an exciton-polariton Bose-Einstein condensate at room temperature, marking a rare case of an exotic quantum phase outside ultracold conditions.
The state emerged in an optical microcavity combining a liquid crystal and an organic semiconductor, where light-matter coupling created exciton polaritons that condensed into a superfluid and then a supersolid.
Bright fringes appearing at different positions after each laser pulse showed spontaneous symmetry breaking, while the researchers also detected simultaneous order in both polarization and light intensity.
The setup was electrically tunable and could operate near 60C, giving the result practical relevance for future quantum photonic devices as well as studies of light-matter quantum phases.
The work, published in Science Advances, extends supersolid research beyond the 2017 ultracold-atom demonstrations but required fresh samples because the organic semiconductor reacted with the liquid crystal within hours.