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Researchers Find Semimetal That Clings to a Quantum Precipice
Scientists studying a special kind of semimetals have found a material with an unusually pristine nature that could be crucial for developing powerful new quantum technologies and discovering new phases of matter.
In an open access paper published in Science Advances, Johns Hopkins physicists and colleagues at Rice University, the Vienna University of Technology (TU Wien), and the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), present experimental evidence of naturally occurring quantum criticality in a material.
Criticality is the point at which a material hovers between two phases-like the slushy transition between water and ice-without ever settling. Useful materials often exploit this point. For example, air conditioners use compressors to change refrigerant from gas to liquid, and the “liquid crystals” of a commonplace liquid crystal display (LCD) are situated at a transition between liquid a
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Home > Press > Quantum quirk yields giant magnetic effect, where none should exist: Study opens window into the landscape of extreme topological matter
Rice University theoretical physicists (from left) Hsin-Hua Lai, Qimiao Si and Sarah Grefe worked with experimental collaborators at Vienna University of Technology to understand topological features of a nonmagnetic Weyl-Kondo semimetal allowed it to produce a giant Hall effect in the absence of a magnetic field.
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Photo by Jeff Fitlow/Rice University
Abstract:
In a twist befitting the strange nature of quantum mechanics, physicists have discovered the Hall effect a characteristic change in the way electricity is conducted in the presence of a magnetic field in a nonmagnetic quantum material to which no magnetic field was applied.