Superconducting dual-channel photonic switch

Abstract

The mechanism of Cooper pair formation and underlying physics has long occupied the investigation into high temperature (high-Tc ) cuprate superconductors. One of the ways to unravel this is to observe ultrafast response present in charge carrier dynamics of a photoexcited specimen. This results in an interesting approach to exploit the dissipation-less dynamic features of superconductors to be utilized for designing subwavelength photonic devices with extremely low-loss operation. Here, we experimentally demonstrate dual-channel, ultrafast, all-optical switching and modulation between the resistive and the superconducting quantum mechanical phase. The ultrafast phase switching is demonstrated via modulation of sharp Fano resonance of a high-T c Yttrium Barium Copper Oxide (YBCO) superconducting metamaterial device. Upon photoexcitation by femtosecond light pulses, the ultrasensitive cuprate superconductor undergoes dual dissociation-relaxation dynamics, with restoration of superconductivity within a cycle, and thereby establishes the existence of dual switching windows within a timescale of 80 ps. We explored pathways to engineer the secondary dissociation channel which provides unprecedented control over the switching speed. Most importantly, our results envision new ways to accomplish low-loss, ultrafast and ultrasensitive dual channel switching applications that are inaccessible through conventional metallic and dielectric based metamaterials.

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Identifiers

ORCID for Vassili Savinov: orcid.org/0000-0001-7203-7222

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