Scientists at Rutgers and in Estonia have used invisible light to look into tiny magnetic whirlpools, called vortices, inside a superconductor, revealing details that could help researchers develop better materials for carrying electricity.

Their study, published in Physical Review Letters, distinguishes two groups of particles trapped within those vortices and measures properties that conventional techniques couldn’t readily separate.

“To improve superconductors, scientists need to understand what vortices contain and how they behave,” said Girsh Blumberg, a distinguished professor in the Department of Physics and Astronomy in the Rutgers School of Arts and Sciences and a co-author of the study. “This study provides a new way to look inside them.”