DATE2025.09.09 #Press Releases

Development of On-Chip Terahertz Pump–Probe Spectroscopy and Its Application to Superconductors

―A Novel Method for Controlling Quantum Materials via Ultrafast Currents―

Summary

A research group led by Professor Ryo Shimano (also Professor at the Department of Physics, School of Science, The University of Tokyo) at the Cryogenic Research Center, The University of Tokyo, together with Project Assistant Professor Fumiya Sekiguchi, Assistant Professor Naotaka Yoshikawa, and then-graduate student Daichi Yoshioka from the Department of Physics, Graduate School of Science, has developed an on-chip terahertz pump–probe spectroscopy technique. This method enables the observation of ultrafast and nonlinear responses of materials to currents or electric fields on a chip-based waveguide.

The team successfully applied this technique to superconductors, demonstrating for the first time an observation of transition from the superconducting to the normal state, induced by current pulse injection, taking place on the ultrafast picosecond timescale.

The research results were published online in the international journal Nano Letters of the American Chemical Society on September 9, 2025.

Figure：Conceptual illustration of the on-chip terahertz pump–probe spectroscopy method

Links

Cryogenic Research Center, The University of Tokyo

Journals

Journal name	Nano Letters
Title of paper	On-Chip Terahertz Pump−Probe Spectroscopy Revealing Ultrafast Current-Induced Breakdown Dynamics in a Superconducting Nb Microstrip