Magnetic materials form the basis of modern electronics and information storage. In recent years, scientists have been pushing to discover new materials that reveal quantum magnetic behavior.
After 25 years of searching, David Mandrus, a materials synthesis investigator in the foundation's EPiQS initiative, and colleagues at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, have opened the door for other researchers to learn more about quantum spin liquids, an elusive quantum state of matter.
Co-led by Mandrus, the team of researchers has identified a materials system that drives a particularly interesting magnetic state that could be useful for quantum information processing, called the Kitaev quantum spin liquid. These findings were reported recently in the journal Nature Materials and were featured on the cover.
Quantum spin liquids can be found in a class of materials known as frustrated magnets. Magnets possess a property called spin that makes each individual electron within a material behave as if it were a tiny magnetic compass needle.
The millions or billions of spins in a material interact with each other in various ways and form the different possible magnetic states found in solid matter. Taken together, the spin of the material's electrons grants the same magnetic properties to the material itself.
In a conventional magnet, the interactions between spins result in long-range order, in which the magnetic directions of each individual electron are aligned. In a frustrated magnet, the arrangement of electron spins prevents them from forming an ordered alignment, and so they collapse into a fluctuating, liquid-like state.
Quantum spin liquids exhibit remarkable properties, such as the capacity to protect quantum information from decoherence, and could lead to new applications for magnetic data storage and memory.
Read the full article here.
Spin, a property of sub-atomic particles such as electrons and quarks, makes each individual electron behave as if it were a tiny magnetic compass needle. The millions or billions of electron spins in a piece of material interact with each other in various ways and stabilise to form the different possible magnetic states found in solid matter. Taken together in such large numbers, the spin of the material's electrons grants the same magnetic properties to the material itself.
Read more at: http://phys.org/news/2016-04-state-quantum-liquidsexplained.html#jCp
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