{"id":239053,"date":"2026-06-16T07:25:28","date_gmt":"2026-06-16T12:25:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2026\/06\/ultrafast-laser-pulses-reveal-a-materials-hidden-state-of-matter"},"modified":"2026-06-16T07:25:28","modified_gmt":"2026-06-16T12:25:28","slug":"ultrafast-laser-pulses-reveal-a-materials-hidden-state-of-matter","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2026\/06\/ultrafast-laser-pulses-reveal-a-materials-hidden-state-of-matter","title":{"rendered":"Ultrafast laser pulses reveal a material\u2019s hidden state of matter"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a class=\"aligncenter blog-photo\" href=\"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog.images\/ultrafast-laser-pulses-reveal-a-materials-hidden-state-of-matter2.jpg\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p>What would it take to instantly transform a material from an electrical insulator into a conductive state without ever touching it? Using ultrafast laser pulses and powerful X-rays, scientists at the National Synchrotron Light Source II (NSLS-II)\u2014a U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Office of Science user facility at DOE\u2019s Brookhaven National Laboratory\u2014developed a methodology to generate \u201chidden\u201d phases and understand why they work.<\/p>\n<p>This research not only reveals a hidden state of matter and its fundamental interactions but also points toward new ways to control materials for future electronics and quantum technologies. Their work was recently <a href=\"https:\/\/link.aps.org\/doi\/10.1103\/24wn-q427\" target=\"_blank\">published<\/a> in Physical Review X.<\/p>\n<p>At the heart of the research is an interesting class of quantum materials called <a href=\"https:\/\/phys.org\/news\/2024-06-electronics-ultrafast-lasers-magnetite.html?utm_source=embeddings&utm_medium=related&utm_campaign=internal\" rel=\"related\">magnetoresistive manganites<\/a>. Under the right conditions, their properties and behaviors can change completely with external stimuli. In this case, the team used short bursts of laser light lasting 100 femtoseconds (one hundred quadrillionths of a second) to \u201cswitch\u201d a material from an insulating state, where electricity cannot flow, to a conductive one.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>What would it take to instantly transform a material from an electrical insulator into a conductive state without ever touching it? Using ultrafast laser pulses and powerful X-rays, scientists at the National Synchrotron Light Source II (NSLS-II)\u2014a U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Office of Science user facility at DOE\u2019s Brookhaven National Laboratory\u2014developed a methodology to [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":427,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1635,1617],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-239053","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-materials","category-quantum-physics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/239053","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/427"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=239053"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/239053\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=239053"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=239053"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=239053"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}