Our liquid-crystal microcavities can operate even at temperatures approaching 60 °C (140 °F), as physicist Wiktor Piecek from the Military University of Technology in Poland stated.
ScienceAlert reported that international researchers successfully engineered an exotic quantum state of matter without requiring extreme cryogenic cooling.
This state combines the properties of a superfluid, which flows without resistance, with the regular crystal structure of a solid. The setup uses an optical microcavity filled with a liquid crystal and coated with an organic semiconductor. Laser pulses supply the energy necessary for the reaction.
Physicists produced hybrid quasiparticles known as exciton-polaritons by coupling light and matter together. These quasiparticles form a Bose-Einstein condensate where multiple entities act as a single quantum system. That condensate then transitions into a supersolid phase.
This is a textbook example of spontaneous symmetry breaking, according to physicist Guillaume Malpuech from the French National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS). Theory predicted that the supersolid could choose among several equivalent states, and that is exactly what the team observed.
Interesting Engineering reported that a team from the University of Warsaw, the Military University of Technology, IBM Research Zurich, and CNRS collaborated on the experiment. The study shows that photonic systems can bypass absolute-zero requirements. Voltages can control the optical microcavities directly.
The resulting quantum state remains short-lived due to material degradation. The organic semiconductor reacts chemically with the liquid crystal over time. Marcin Muszyński from the City College of New York noted that the team had to plan the experimental sequence in advance because repeating a measurement meant fabricating an entirely new sample.
Successive laser pulses caused the condensate to reform with stripes lining up in slightly different places during each refresh. Computer simulation models backed up these experimental observations. The research findings were published in Science Advances.
Researchers tested multiple samples with consistent results. Future work will focus on extending the lifespan of these core reactions. Scientists also plan to investigate quantum vortices that appeared as flaws in the stripe patterns.
