RPI Achieves Room-Temperature Supersolid Using Light
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- RPI researchers engineered a supersolid at room temperature—published in Nature Nanotechnology—by combining a high-quality perovskite crystal with a precisely patterned nanostructure that traps and shapes light
- Wei Bao, senior author and assistant professor of materials science and engineering at RPI, said the chip-scale platform can be "engineered and potentially scaled," overcoming a long-standing limitation that had confined supersolids to labs operating near absolute zero
- When illuminated by a laser, the device produces polaritons (part-light, part-matter particles) that condense into a single quantum state at low power, then spontaneously reorganize into a striped crystal pattern at higher energy while maintaining quantum coherence across the entire system
- The resulting pattern varies randomly from one experimental run to the next, a feature the researchers say proves the crystal structure forms spontaneously through competing quantum states rather than being imposed by the device geometry
- Co-lead authors Wei Li and Yilin Meng built and characterized the device, with Meng noting the team confirmed the pattern's randomness is "genuine" by synchronizing laser pulses with single-shot real-space imaging
- The discovery could enable new lasers with tunable spatial patterns and advances in optical computing, with the researchers noting the platform is extendable to study vortex dynamics and richer collective quantum behaviors
Why it matters: For decades, supersolids were a laboratory curiosity achievable only near absolute zero, restricting research to a handful of cryogenic facilities. The RPI team's chip-scale, room-temperature device brings the phenomenon within reach of ordinary labs and applied photonics research, giving engineers a new platform for designing coherent light sources and studying nonequilibrium quantum order.
