Hybrid optical fiber for light-induced superconductivity

TL;DR

This paper proposes a novel optical fiber design that uses light-induced exciton-polariton condensates to enhance superconductivity in a fiber, potentially enabling long-distance supercurrent transport at higher temperatures.

Contribution

It introduces a hybrid fiber structure with a perovskite cladding layer to optically induce and control high-temperature superconductivity in the outer superconductor layer.

Findings

Simulations confirm the feasibility of the proposed fiber design.

Coupling with exciton-polaritons can significantly raise the superconductor's critical temperature.

The fiber enables potential long-distance superconducting current transmission.

Abstract

We exploit the recent proposals for the light-induced superconductivity mediated by a Bose-Einstein condensate of exciton-polaritons to design a superconducting fiber that would enable long-distance transport of a supercurrent at elevated temperatures. The proposed fiber consists of a conventional core made of a silica glass with the first cladding layer formed by a material sustaining dipole-polarised excitons with a binding energy exceeding 25 meV. To be specific, we consider a perovskite cladding layer of 20 nm width. The second cladding layer is made of a conventional superconductor such as aluminium. The fiber is covered by a conventional coating buffer and by a plastic outer jacket. We argue that the critical temperature for a superconducting phase transition in the second cladding layer may be strongly enhanced due to the coupling of the superconductor to a bosonic condensate of exciton-polaritons optically induced by the evanescent part of the guiding mode confined in the core. The guided light mode would penetrate to the first cladding layer and provide the strong exciton-photon coupling regime. We run simulations that confirm the validity of the proposed concept. The fabrication of superconducting fibers where a high-temperature superconductivity could be controlled by light would enable passing superconducting currents over extremely long distances.