An international team led by Rutgers University-New Brunswick researchers has merged two lab-synthesized materials into a synthetic quantum structure once thought impossible to exist and produced an exotic structure expected to provide insights that could lead to new materials at the core of quantum computing.
The work, described in a cover story in the journal Nano Letters ("Epitaxial Stabilization of a Pyrochlore Interface between Weyl Semimetal and Spin Ice"), explains how four years of continuous experimentation led to a novel method to design and build a unique, tiny sandwich composed of distinct atomic layers. One slice of the microscopic structure is made of dysprosium titanate, an inorganic compound used in nuclear reactors to trap radioactive materials and contain elusive magnetic monopole particles, while the other is composed of pyrochlore iridate, a new magnetic semimetal mainly used in today’s experimental research due to its distinctive electronic, topological and magnetic properties.
Individually, both materials are often considered “impossible” materials due to their unique properties that challenge conventional understanding of quantum physics.
The construction of the exotic sandwich structure sets the stage for scientific explorations in what is referred to as the interface, the area where the materials meet, in the atomic scale.
“This work provides a new way to design entirely new artificial two-dimensional quantum materials, with the potential to push quantum technologies and provide deeper insight into their fundamental properties in ways that were previously impossible,” said Jak Chakhalian, the Claud Lovelace Endowed Professor of Experimental Physics in the Department of Physics and Astronomy at the Rutgers School of Arts and Sciences and a principal investigator the study.
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