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https://news.illinois.edu/view/6367/625022
Researchers have produced a "human scale" demonstration of a new phase of matter called quadrupole topological insulators that was recently predicted using theoretical physics. These are the first experimental findings to validate this theory.
The researchers report their findings in the journal Nature.
The team's work with QTIs was born out of the decade-old understanding of the properties of a class of materials called topological insulators. "TIs are electrical insulators on the inside and conductors along their boundaries, and may hold great potential for helping build low-power, robust computers and devices, all defined at the atomic scale," said mechanical science and engineering professor and senior investigator Gaurav Bahl.
The uncommon properties of TIs make them a special form of electronic matter. "Collections of electrons can form their own phases within materials. These can be familiar solid, liquid and gas phases like water, but they can also sometimes form more unusual phases like a TI," said co-author and physics professor Taylor Hughes.
Christopher W. Peterson, Wladimir A. Benalcazar, Taylor L. Hughes & Gaurav Bahl. A quantized microwave quadrupole insulator with topologically protected corner states. Nature, 2018 DOI: 10.1038/nature25777
(Score: 5, Funny) by GreatAuntAnesthesia on Tuesday March 27 2018, @03:06PM (2 children)
I think you're being too hard on them. Granted, most of Quadrupole's back catalogue is way too experimental for most people, but their first album is very listenable, and is actually cited as a major influence by such artists as Negative Mass Bitch, DJs Charm & Strange, Boss Einstein and the Condensates, The Unified Field Posse and of course Kraftwerk. It's also worth noting that their output has been even less... conventional... since the entire band got trapped in an intrinsic field generator and accidentally reduced themselves to a quantum field of probable quasi-musicians. However if you are able to listen to music in infrared, I'd say their latest single is well worth a spin.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 27 2018, @03:27PM (1 child)
What about the Electric Universe Orchestra?
(Score: 2) by LoRdTAW on Tuesday March 27 2018, @07:05PM
Their unplugged album was terrible.