{"id":242527,"date":"2026-08-11T05:29:32","date_gmt":"2026-08-11T10:29:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2026\/08\/distant-time-crystals-oscillate-in-unison-paving-the-way-for-spin-networks"},"modified":"2026-08-11T05:29:32","modified_gmt":"2026-08-11T10:29:32","slug":"distant-time-crystals-oscillate-in-unison-paving-the-way-for-spin-networks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2026\/08\/distant-time-crystals-oscillate-in-unison-paving-the-way-for-spin-networks","title":{"rendered":"Distant time crystals oscillate in unison, paving the way for spin networks"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a class=\"aligncenter blog-photo\" href=\"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog.images\/distant-time-crystals-oscillate-in-unison-paving-the-way-for-spin-networks2.jpg\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p>In January 2024, physicists at TU Dortmund University demonstrated a continuous time crystal in a semiconductor whose oscillations remained stable for hours. In a new study <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nature.com\/articles\/s41467-026-75714-1\" target=\"_blank\">published<\/a> in <i>Nature Communications<\/i>, Professor Alex Greilich and his team show that many such time crystals can form in the same material and synchronize their electron-nuclear spin oscillations.<\/p>\n<p>Time crystals are systems whose internal dynamics repeat periodically in time without being driven by a periodic external signal. In the TU Dortmund experiment, they are created in a semiconductor made of gallium arsenide containing small amounts of indium and silicon, which provides localized electrons. At temperatures close to \u2212270\u00b0C (\u2212454\u00b0F), each electron interacts with about one million surrounding nuclear spins.<\/p>\n<p>A pump laser aligns the electron spins, which transfer their polarization to the nuclear spins. In a weak magnetic field, the nuclear-spin polarization begins to rotate. The resulting <a href=\"https:\/\/phys.org\/news\/2023-10-uncovering-secrets-spin-orbit-optical-rabi.html?utm_source=embeddings&utm_medium=related&utm_campaign=internal\" rel=\"related\">feedback between the electron and nuclear spins<\/a> sustains the oscillations, while a second laser is used to observe them.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In January 2024, physicists at TU Dortmund University demonstrated a continuous time crystal in a semiconductor whose oscillations remained stable for hours. In a new study published in Nature Communications, Professor Alex Greilich and his team show that many such time crystals can form in the same material and synchronize their electron-nuclear spin oscillations. Time [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":427,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1635,219],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-242527","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-materials","category-physics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/242527","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=242527"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/242527\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=242527"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=242527"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=242527"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}