Laser pulses bring order to a quantum material's tiny electrical regions

Physicists at Auburn University have used flashes of laser light to bring order to tiny electrically charged "islands" inside a crystal. This article has been reviewed according to Science X's editorial process and policies.

The discovery helps answer a decades-old question about how the material organizes itself and shows how light could be used to control its behavior, a step toward exploring new technologies for processing and storing information. Collaborators at Japan's National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology grew the crystals used in the experiments.

Understanding what makes them line up could help scientists explain the material's behavior and find new ways to control it. The results provided strong evidence that the islands were already present before they lined up.

The alignment lasted only a picosecond, that is, 10⁻¹² second, but demonstrating that it could be created and read using light opens possibilities for investigating extremely fast ways to handle information. The project began at the 2023 American Physical Society March Meeting, where Jin connected with researchers in Japan who could grow the crystals.

The Auburn team then spent nearly a year improving its equipment before detecting the islands' faint optical signal. Discover the latest in science, tech, and space with over 100, 000 subscribers who rely on Phys. org for daily insights.

The breakthrough came in 2025, when Mohamed finally observed the disordered polar regions becoming aligned under laser illumination," Jin said.

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