Quantum technology has promising potential to revolutionize how large and complex amounts of information are processed. While already in use primarily in laboratory and research settings globally, quantum technologies are in a transition phase for broader industry applications across many economic sectors.

In researching fundamental aspects of quantum physics, or the behavior of nature at the smallest scales—involving atoms, electrons and photons—a study led by Cal Poly Physics Department Lecturer Ian Powell analyzed how a changing magnetic field can make matter behave in unusual ways.

Powell and student researcher Louis Buchalter, who graduated with a Cal Poly bachelor’s degree in physics in 2025, published the article “Flux-Switching Floquet Engineering” in the journal Physical Review B, highlighting how changing magnetic fields over time can create quantum states that do not exist in any stationary material (remaining in the same state as time elapses).