Researchers at the Energy Department’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) discovered a use for perovskites that could push forward the development of quantum computing.

The discovery, made quite accidentally, occurred while the researchers were investigating excitons in perovskites. The sample was illuminated with a short laser pulse whose wavelength was specifically tuned to avoid being absorbed by the sample. Instead, the exposure triggered a strong interaction of light with the perovskite, producing a shifted transition energy known as the optical Stark effect. The effect occurs in semiconductors, but typically can only be observed at extremely low temperatures in very high-quality, high-cost materials. NREL’s scientists were able to observe the effect quite readily at room temperature in materials grown using solution processing.