Imagine a material where electricity races like lightning with no energy loss, thanks to particles behaving like they’ve stepped out of Einstein’s playbook. That’s a Weyl semimetal, powered by quirky little speedsters called Weyl fermions.
Now, meet spin ice, a magnetic crystal where tiny magnetic fields are frozen in place, mimicking how hydrogen atoms are spaced in real ice. Strange, right? But wildly cool.
When scientists at Rutgers combined these two into a layered structure called a heterostructure and blasted it with an ultra-high magnetic field, they unlocked a whole new level of quantum weirdness. The goal? To understand how this electric speedster material interacts with magnetic ice under intense conditions.
At their atomic interface, something wild happened: matter started behaving in a completely new way. The big reveal? A brand-new state of matter called quantum liquid crystal doesn’t quite follow the usual rules of physics. Instead of electrons flowing evenly like water in a pipe, this state makes them move with a stylish slant: they prefer specific directions over others.
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This leads to a quirky behavior called electronic anisotropy, where electricity flows differently depending on the direction, like a road with hidden speed bumps. In a full circle (360°), there are six directions where electricity slows down.
Crank up the magnetic field, and bam! Electrons suddenly reverse course, flowing in two opposite directions, a total plot twist.
This discovery is consistent with a characteristic seen in the quantum phenomenon known as rotational symmetry breaking. That’s a hint that the system has entered a new, mysterious quantum phase, especially when exposed to powerful magnetic fields.
Tsung-Chi Wu, who earned his doctoral degree in June from the Rutgers graduate program in physics and astronomy and is the first author of the study, said, “Although each material has been extensively studied, their interaction at this boundary has remained entirely unexplored. We observed new quantum phases that emerge only when these two materials interact. This creates a new quantum topological state of matter at high magnetic fields, which was previously unknown.”
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The findings are significant because they reveal new ways to control material properties by studying how electrons move in special materials. This knowledge could help them create highly sensitive quantum sensors that detect magnetic fields in harsh environments.
Researchers have found that new states of matter appear under extreme conditions, including very low temperatures, high pressures, or high magnetic fields, and behave in strange and fascinating ways.
To uncover these effects, researchers used advanced lab experiments along with powerful computer models and calculations.
Journal Reference:
- Tsung-Chi Wu, Yueqing Chang, ANg-Kun Wu et al. Electronic anisotropy and rotational symmetry breaking at a Weyl semimetal/spin ice interface. Science Advances. DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.adr6202