Authors make use of a new optical device to drive metallic K3C60 with mid-infrared pulses of tunable duration, ranging between one picosecond and one nanosecond. The same superconducting-like optical properties observed over short time windows for femtosecond excitation are shown here to become metastable under sustained optical driving, with lifetimes in excess of ten nanoseconds.
is where light is used to induce superconducting-like states in materials. If we can learn more about the mechanisms behind this phenomenon, we can more intentionally d