Aug 19, 2021 19:00:00

Succeeded in 'two-dimensionalizing' the mysterious state 'supersolid' that flows like a liquid even though it is a solid

In the world we recognize, it is common knowledge that substances have three states, 'solid', 'liquid', and 'gas', but under the special environment of extremely low temperature and high pressure, they are solid but liquid. 'behave as well as

ultra-solid it had been confirmed that the state is referred to as' exists. Regarding this supersolid state, a research team at the Institute of Quantum Optics and Quantum Information, Austrian Academy of Sciences, newly reported that it 'successfully made the supersolid state two-dimensional.'

Supersolids go two-dimensional
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-021-02191-5

Supersolid in a new dimension --Institute for Quantum Optics and Quantum Information --Austrian Academy of Sciences
https://iqoqi.at/en/current/news/795-supersolid-in-a-new-dimension

Physicists give weird new phase of matter an extra dimension | Live Science
https://www.livescience.com/first-2d-supersolid.html

A substance undergoes a phase transition depending on temperature and pressure. For example, water, which is a liquid, changes from a solid to a liquid at 0 degrees, and changes from a liquid to a gas at 100 degrees. Regarding such a phase transition, when helium-4 is cooled to near absolute zero, the aggregate of helium atoms behaves as a wave, and it is called 'superfluidity ', which was thought to be exhibited only by fluids despite being solid. It has been confirmed that it expresses its properties.

Supersolids are explained in detail in the following articles.

The mysterious state of 'solid but also liquid' What is 'supersolid'? --GIGAZINE

This time, Professor Francesca Ferlaino of the Quantum Optics and Quantum Information Institute of the Austrian Academy of Sciences has achieved the 'two-dimensionalization' of this supersolid. In 2017, a research team at ETH Zurich and a research team at ETH Zurich reported that they 'achieved supersolids using ultra-low temperature quantum gas,' respectively. , It was a 'one-dimensional' thing in which the droplets formed by each atom were lined up in a row.

This time, Professor Ferraino et al. Cooled the set of

dysprosium 164 suspended by optical tweezers to near absolute zero by laser cooling , and then loosened the optical tweezers slightly to leave a gap for the atom with the highest energy to move. Create a multi-row supersolid state. Achieved two-dimensional supersolid.

Until now, there has been a problem with one-dimensional supersolids that it is difficult to determine whether or not they are actually in a supersolid state. However, in a two-dimensional supersolid, it is possible to adopt a judgment method of ' twisting the entire system to check whether it has a moment of inertia that a solid cannot have', which was not possible in a one-dimensional state, so it is related to supersolids. It is expected to dramatically advance the research of.