The semimetal—one part cerium, four parts ruthenium, and six parts tin—seems to be naturally quantum critical, meaning it sits at the edge of multiple phases of matter
Neues Quantenmaterial entdeckt chemie.de - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from chemie.de Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
A new semimetal has been found, showing remarkable properties: It is a quantum critical material, which means that it has phase transitions at absolute zero temperature. Usually, quantum criticality can only be created under very specific environmental conditions a certain pressure or an electromagnetic field. But the new material is quantum critical on its own.
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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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