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Category: quantum physics – Page 6

Stacked quantum materials enable precise spin control without external magnetic fields

Spintronics—a technology that harnesses the electron’s magnetic quantum states to carry information—could pave the way for a new generation of ultra-energy-efficient electronics. Yet a major challenge has been the ability to control these delicate quantum properties with sufficient precision for practical applications. By combining different quantum materials, researchers at Chalmers University of Technology have now taken a decisive step forward, achieving unprecedented control over spin phenomena. The advance opens the door to next-generation low-power data processing and memory technologies.

Data centers, cloud services, AI and connected systems account for a rapidly growing share of global energy consumption. In the quest for new, more energy-efficient technological solutions, spin electronics, or spintronics, has proven to be a new and promising approach. Instead of relying solely on the movement of electric charge, spintronics use magnetic states to carry information. More specifically, it takes advantage of a quantum property of electrons known as spin, which makes electrons behave like tiny magnets.

“Just like a compass needle, an electron’s spin can point in one of two directions—up or down. These two directions can be used to represent digital information, in the same way today’s electronics use 0s and 1s,” explains Saroj Dash, Professor of Quantum Device Physics at Chalmers University of Technology.

This Spacetime Quasicrystal Could Solve Physicists’ Biggest Problem

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What is space, really? That’s one of the biggest questions in science. According to a pair of researchers from the Perimeter Institute, the answer to that is: a quasicrystal. What is a quasicrystal, and how is space a quasicrystal? Let’s take a look.

Paper: https://arxiv.org/abs/2601.

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#science #sciencenews #spacetime #physicsteacher.

What is space? That’s one of the biggest questions, not just in the foundations of physics, but in all of science. According to a new paper, the answer may be a quasicrystal, an idea from researchers working on quantum gravity. This video explores the implications of this idea, touching on concepts like String Theory and Loop Quantum Gravity, to understand what it might mean for theoretical physics.

Continue reading “This Spacetime Quasicrystal Could Solve Physicists’ Biggest Problem” | >

Watching quantum behavior in action: MagnetoARPES reveals time-reversal symmetry breaking in a kagome superconductor

Electron movement and structures described in quantum physics allow researchers to better understand how and why materials like superconductors behave as they do. Rice University researchers Jianwei Huang and Ming Yi have developed a new capability, magnetoARPES, building on angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy (ARPES) that allows researchers to study quantum behaviors they have been unable to resolve using ARPES alone. The work has been published in Nature Physics.

MagnetoARPES adds a tunable magnetic field, external to the sample, to ARPES. This allows researchers to probe the full electronic response to a magnetic field, giving insights into why certain collective behaviors of electrons develop.

Magnetic fields have, historically, been excluded from ARPES experiments, but over the course of a few years of experimentation and simulations, Yi’s team found a viable way to incorporate this capability into the ARPES sample environment.

Quantum materials could enable the solar-powered production of hydrogen from water

Hydrogen fuel is a promising alternative to fossil fuels that only emits water vapor when used and could thus help to lower greenhouse gas emissions on Earth. In the future, it could potentially be used to fuel heavy-duty transport vehicles, such as trucks, trains, and ships, as well as industrial heating and decentralized power generation systems.

Unfortunately, most current methods to produce hydrogen rely on the burning of fossil fuels, which limits its environmental advantages. Given its potential, many energy engineers worldwide have been trying to devise more sustainable strategies to produce hydrogen on a large scale.

One proposed method for the clean production of hydrogen is known as photocatalytic water splitting. This approach entails splitting water molecules into hydrogen and oxygen, using photocatalysts (i.e., materials that respond to sunlight and prompt desired chemical reactions).

Ultrafast computing: Light-driven logic tops 10 terahertz in WS₂

The future for our computers will literally be at the speed of light. Extremely short light pulses can perform ultrafast logical operations: these are the findings of a study recently published in the journal Nature Photonics. The study represents an important step toward developing a new generation of information processing technologies, potentially hundreds of times faster than what we have at present.

Today’s computers rely on the movement of electrical charges inside transistors; however, these can only achieve a maximum frequency whose physical limits are hard to overcome. Unlike traditional electronics, based on the movement of electric charges, this innovative approach manipulates the state of electrons in matter by the use of oscillating light.

As Giulio Cerullo of the Politecnico di Milano explained, “We have shown that light can be used not only to transmit information, but also to process it. With the use of ultra-short laser pulses, we can control the quantum states of matter on time scales of a few millionths of a billionth of a second, i.e. at the same frequencies as light oscillations, speeds previously unknown in electronics.” These operations are performed at rates above 10 terahertz, over a hundred times faster than the best modern electronic devices.

Chemical shifts help track molecules breaking apart in real time

When molecules fall apart, their electric charge doesn’t stay put—it rearranges as bonds stretch and break. An international team of scientists has now tracked these ultrafast changes in the small molecule fluoromethane (CH₃F). It was the first time that the Small Quantum Systems (SQS) instrument at European XFEL could deliver detailed insights into transient states during chemical reactions. The research is published in the journal Physical Review X.

These intermediate states, that only exist temporarily while the reaction is ongoing, are often the key drivers of chemistry and therefore crucial to understand. Over the long term, that kind of insight can support progress in areas such as atmospheric science (where sunlight-driven reactions and fragmentation pathways shape air chemistry), as well as the study of complex molecular systems including biomolecules and proteins, where local excitation and charge transfer can trigger structural change.

In the experiment, the researchers first triggered the reaction with an optical laser pulse. Next, they used the X-ray laser pulses that the European XFEL produces, to eject an electron from the core of either the fluorine or the carbon atom in the molecule. They measured the electron’s kinetic energy, which reveals how strongly it was bound inside the atom. That binding energy is extremely sensitive to the local electrical environment, producing so-called “chemical shifts” that act like a fingerprint of the charge distribution surrounding the atom from which the electron has been ejected.

Precisely measuring quantum signals in large spin ensembles

Quantum mechanical effects are known to be easily disrupted by disturbances from the surrounding environment, commonly referred to as noise. To minimize these disturbances, physicists often study these effects in small and carefully controlled systems, in which environmental noise can be minimized.

Researchers at Johns Hopkins University set out to study quantum effects in macroscopic spin ensembles, systems comprised of large numbers of spins (spins is the intrinsic angular momentum of elementary particles). Their paper, published in Nature Physics, introduces a new approach to directly observe quantum spin fluctuations in macroscopic spin ensembles, precisely monitoring their evolution over time.

“Quantum effects are typically observed and exploited in microscopic systems, where individual qubits can be precisely controlled and measured,” Alexander O. Sushkov, senior author of the paper, told Phys.org.

Scientists harness quantum tunneling to boost heavy water production efficiency

A study by scientists at Hunan University introduces a new hydrogen isotope separation method that leverages proton quantum tunneling to produce heavy water, overcoming the key physical limitation faced by current methods that have made the production process difficult and expensive for decades.

According to results published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, this new strategy achieves a record-high H2O separation factor of 276 at room temperature by designing through-barriers that allow hydrogen nuclei to pass through them via quantum tunneling, leaving deuterium behind.

By leveraging quantum mechanics, the method could pave the way for cleaner and more efficient production of a critical material for future energy technologies.

Scientists control ‘free-flowing’ electric currents with light

By controlling magnetic fields using light, a team of researchers led by NTU scientists has solved a long-standing challenge to precisely direct electric currents produced by quantum materials. Their findings unlock new avenues for controlling the flow of electricity through such materials and could herald the age of energy-efficient quantum computing devices. The research is published in Nature in January.

Like water moving through lakes and rivers, electrons in electric currents encounter resistance when flowing through electronic devices. This resistance generates large amounts of heat, which poses a problem for large computing facilities such as data centers and quantum computers, incurring major costs for cooling.

With artificial intelligence driving the demand for more computing applications, there is a need to produce electricity that flows without resistance to avoid generating excessive amounts of heat. These “free-flowing” electric currents could pave the way for novel low-power electronics and new quantum computing technologies.

Physicists Finally Realize Long-Predicted 2D Topological Crystal in the Lab

Researchers in Finland have experimentally realized a long-predicted class of quantum material: a two-dimensional topological crystalline insulator. Physicists at the University of Jyväskylä and Aalto University (Finland) have successfully created a two-dimensional topological crystalline insulat

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