The world economy is becoming ever more reliant on high tech electronics such as computers featuring fingernail-sized microprocessors crammed with billions of transistors. For progress to continue, for Moore's Law -- according to which the number of computer components crammed onto microchips doubles every two years, even as the size and cost of components halves -- to continue, new materials and new phenomena need to be discovered.
Furthermore, as the sizes of electronic components shrink, soon down to the size of single atoms or molecules, quantum interactions become ever more important. Consequently, enhanced knowledge and exploitation of quantum effects is essential. Researchers at the Joint Quantum Institute (JQI) in College Park, Maryland, operated by the University of Maryland and the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), and at Georgetown University have uncovered evidence for a long-sought-after quantum state of matter, a spin liquid.
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