Quantum technology is widely seen as one of the most promising future tools for processing massive and complicated amounts of information. Although most quantum systems are still confined to laboratories and research facilities, scientists are steadily working toward applications that could eventually impact industries across the economy.
A new study led by Cal Poly Physics Department Lecturer Ian Powell explored a fundamental question in quantum physics: how matter behaves at the smallest scales involving atoms, electrons, and photons. The research focused on what happens when magnetic fields are changed over time and how those shifting fields can produce unusual quantum behavior.
Powell and student researcher Louis Buchalter, who earned a Cal Poly bachelor’s degree in physics in 2025, published the study “Flux-Switching Floquet Engineering” in the journal Physical Review B. Their work demonstrates that carefully varying magnetic fields can generate quantum states that do not exist in stationary materials (remaining in the same state as time elapses).
“On a big-picture level, I would describe this as an advance in our understanding of how time-dependent control can create and organize new forms of quantum matter,” Powell said. “The central idea is that useful quantum properties can depend not just on what a material is, but on how it is driven in time. In our case, we show that periodically changing a magnetic field can produce driven quantum phases with no static counterpart.”
To read more, click here.