{"id":234077,"date":"2026-03-26T02:22:46","date_gmt":"2026-03-26T07:22:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2026\/03\/now-you-see-it-now-you-dont-material-can-transition-between-quantum-states"},"modified":"2026-03-26T02:22:46","modified_gmt":"2026-03-26T07:22:46","slug":"now-you-see-it-now-you-dont-material-can-transition-between-quantum-states","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2026\/03\/now-you-see-it-now-you-dont-material-can-transition-between-quantum-states","title":{"rendered":"Now you see it, now you don\u2019t: Material can transition between quantum states"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a class=\"aligncenter blog-photo\" href=\"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog.images\/now-you-see-it-now-you-dont-material-can-transition-between-quantum-states2.jpg\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p>A team of scientists led by the U.S. Department of Energy\u2019s (DOE) Argonne National Laboratory has identified a rare, switchable quantum property in a new type of nickel sulfide material. The discovery could have applications in high-speed transistors, adaptive sensors and other devices that require a material\u2019s electronic structure to be controlled on the fly. <a href=\"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1016\/j.matt.2025.102418\" target=\"_blank\">The research<\/a> is published in the journal Matter.<\/p>\n<p>The compound, K<sub>x<\/sub>Ni<sub>4<\/sub>S<sub>2<\/sub> (0 \u2264 x \u2264 1), contains nickel and sulfur sandwiched between layers of potassium. The \u201c(0 \u2264 x \u2264 1)\u201d in the name means that the amount of potassium in the material can vary from no potassium at all to a full potassium atom, depending on the sample.<\/p>\n<p>First detailed in <a href=\"https:\/\/pubs.acs.org\/doi\/10.1021\/jacs.1c05107\" target=\"_blank\">a 2021 paper<\/a>, it was created as part of an ongoing quest to develop more superconductors. As researchers examined the layered material\u2019s characteristics, they happened upon a remarkable feature: applying an electrical current could drive the potassium layers out, collapsing the sandwich and changing the material\u2019s structure.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A team of scientists led by the U.S. Department of Energy\u2019s (DOE) Argonne National Laboratory has identified a rare, switchable quantum property in a new type of nickel sulfide material. The discovery could have applications in high-speed transistors, adaptive sensors and other devices that require a material\u2019s electronic structure to be controlled on the fly. [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":427,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1523,48,1617],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-234077","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\/234077","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\/427"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=234077"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/234077\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=234077"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=234077"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=234077"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}