The time crystal could find use in quantum computers and super-precise sensors.
Two teams of scientists have created a new form of matter dubbed “time crystal” whose existence was once only be heard in theory.
Normal crystals such as salt, snowflakes or diamonds have atoms arranged themselves in a pattern that repeats itself in three-dimensional lattice, while the new kind, whose existence was first suggested in 2012, repeats a pattern across the fourth dimension—time.
According to a study published in a science journal Nature, Harvard scientists created time crystals from synthetic diamond while a University of Maryland team used charged atoms of the element ytterbium.
In the journal Nature described: “An appropriately tuned laser would flip the spins by 180 degrees. A second, identical laser burst would return the spins to their original position.”
“Any slight shifts to the frequency of the laser pulses would cause the ions spins to rotate by an amount different from 180 degrees. So they would not reach their starting orientation after two bursts from the spin-flip laser.
“In a time crystal, the additional laser pulses introduce disorder and interactions, which make the system resilient to shifts in the frequency of the spin-flip laser. So the system cycles through a repeating pattern.”
The researcher also verified that the time crystals were a closed system, and thus no energy is lost outside to the world. Also, the matter appears to have property similar to supercomputers.
The time crystal could find use in quantum computers and super-precise sensors.
“The same principle of stability from interactions could apply more widely in quantum computing, said Norman Yao, a physicist at the University of California. Quantum computers show huge promise, but have long struggled with the opposing challenges of protecting the fragile quantum bits that perform calculations, yet keeping them accessible for encoding and reading out information. “You can ask yourself in the future whether one could find phases where interactions stabilize these quantum bits,” Yao added.
The study is published in Nature and can be read in detail here.
