New third kind of quantum magnetism proved by MIT scientists

A new kind of magnetism dubbed quantum spin liquid (QSL), until now only predicted by theories but impossible to prove, was now measured for the first time in a special kind of crystal by a team of MIT researchers. The second kind of magnetism lead to revolutionizing larger hard drives and yielded two nobel prizes for the scientists who first predicted and then discovered the antiferromagnetism.

The third kind could also lead to futuristic new applications in high-temperature superconductors, or perhaps communication based on quantum entanglement, a phenomenon in which two widely separated particles can instantaneously influence each other's physical attributes, although those could be still decades away.

Key to the discovery was the creation of a unique material with the required attributes - a crystal of a mineral called herbertsmithite. Lee and his colleagues first succeeded in making a large, pure crystal of this material last year - a process that took 10 months - and have since been studying its properties in detail.

One of the most fascinating aspects of the exotic, QSL state the scientists created is the way that the magnetism of tiny particles within the crystal influenced one another.
"There is no static order to the magnetic orientations within the material," Lee explained. "But there is a strong interaction between them, and due to quantum effects, they don't lock in place," he said.