Jahn-Teller metal: New state of matter discovered

Brett Smith for redOrbit.com – Your Universe Online

Researchers at Tokohu University in Japan have discovered a strange new type of matter that appears to be both a superconductor and insulator of electricity at the same time.

But before you step out of the house in search of this newest physical state, you should known that “Jahn–Teller metals” pretty much exists only in laboratory conditions.

According to a report from Motherboard, the material scientists that developed the new form of matter said they are particularly interested in its potential as a high-temperature superconductor, a sort of “White Whale” that researchers have been chasing for years.

The Japan-based team was able to create the novel state by starting with a crystalline design of carbon-60 molecules, also known as buckyballs, and supplementing them with rubidium atoms, inserted to regulate and sustain distances between the buckyballs.

After properly ‘tuning’ these molecular structures, the Japanese team saw that applying pressure allowed them to increase the conductivity of what was an insulator at lower pressures.  During the transition, a temporary overlap happens, where the material still appears to be an insulator, but acts like a conductor.

Who or what the heck is Jahn-Teller?

“The surprising thing about this metal–insulator transition is that it involves an intermediate state never seen before,” Hamish Johnston, editor of physicsworld.com, recently wrote. “The researchers have dubbed this a ‘Jahn–Teller metal’ because when the material is studied using infrared spectroscopy, the fulleride molecules clearly show rugby-ball distortions, which were only known to occur in insulators.”

“However, nuclear magnetic resonance measurements clearly show that electrons are able to “hop” from one molecule to the next – which is the signature of a conducting metal,” Johnston added.

According to the Motherboard report, the key to forming Jahn-Teller metals via pressure is the use of rubidium. Pressure can be applied by force, but pressure can also be applied on the molecular scale by adjusting the distances between molecules with the addition of or subtraction of some kind of barrier, such as rubidium atoms.

The results of this molecular construction and pressure-based transition are Jahn–Teller metals, which join Bose–Einstein condensate, supersolids, and superfluids as the most bizarre artificial states of matter.

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