{"id":224701,"date":"2025-11-07T13:02:40","date_gmt":"2025-11-07T19:02:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2025\/11\/quantum-pinball-state-of-matter-electrons-that-conduct-and-insulate-at-the-same-time"},"modified":"2025-11-07T13:02:40","modified_gmt":"2025-11-07T19:02:40","slug":"quantum-pinball-state-of-matter-electrons-that-conduct-and-insulate-at-the-same-time","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2025\/11\/quantum-pinball-state-of-matter-electrons-that-conduct-and-insulate-at-the-same-time","title":{"rendered":"Quantum \u201cPinball\u201d State of Matter: Electrons That Conduct and Insulate at the Same Time"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/a><\/p>\n

Physicists at Florida State University<\/a><\/b> (FSU) have uncovered a fascinating new phase of matter \u2014 a \u201c quantum pinball state<\/a><\/b>\u201d in which electrons act both as conductors<\/b> and insulators<\/b> at the same time. In this bizarre quantum regime, some electrons freeze into a rigid crystalline lattice while others move freely around them, much like balls ricocheting around fixed pins in a pinball machine. The discovery offers a new perspective on how quantum materials behave and could pave the way for breakthroughs in quantum computing<\/a><\/b>, spintronics<\/a><\/b>, and superconductivity<\/a><\/b>.<\/p>\n

The research, published in npj Quantum Materials<\/i>, was led by Dr. Aman Kumar<\/a><\/b>, Prof. Hitesh Changlani<\/a><\/b>, and Prof. Cyprian Lewandowski<\/a><\/b> of FSU\u2019s National High Magnetic Field Laboratory<\/a>. Their study explores how electrons in a two-dimensional \u201cmoir\u00e9 lattice\u201d can transition between solid-like and liquid-like states under certain conditions, forming what physicists call a generalized Wigner crystal<\/a><\/b>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Physicists at Florida State University (FSU) have uncovered a fascinating new phase of matter \u2014 a \u201c quantum pinball state\u201d in which electrons act both as conductors and insulators at the same time. In this bizarre quantum regime, some electrons freeze into a rigid crystalline lattice while others move freely around them, much like balls [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":732,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1523,48,1617],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-224701","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-computing","category-particle-physics","category-quantum-physics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/224701","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/732"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=224701"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/224701\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=224701"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=224701"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=224701"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}