New quantum state at nanonscale

October 5, 5:55 AMBirmingham Science News ExaminerPaul Hamaker

Scientists at the University of Arkansas and University of California-Los Angeles have shown that a new quantum state develops at the nanoscale at very low temperature.

Research professor Sergey Prosandeev and professor Laurent Bellaiche of the University of Arkansas and A.R. Akbarzadeh of the University of California-Los Angeles report the state, called incipient ferrotoroidics, in Physical Review Letters

Using the Star of Arkansas "super computer," the researchers performed both classical physics and quantum mechanical calculations of nanoscale behavior at low temperature. Some of the calculations take weeks with a super computer. For those who have done some quantum mechanical calculations by hand consider the lifetimes this work would take without computing.

A new quantum state called incipient ferrotoroidics was determined to exist at low temperatures at the nanoscale. In this quantum state vibrations wash out the vortex field states. This produces a state where the material is highly susceptible to toroidal movement and independent of temperature. This is considered a topological change.

This is not a fifth state of matter but a new quantum state. This state has some properties that quantum physics predicted but the change in topology was not predicted absolutely.

Applications for this development are a new form of capacitor at low temperature.
A more efficient capacitor is expected.