How This New State of Matter Is Made With Lasers, Crystals, and “Frustration'

Scientists were able to use lasers to create a "supercrystal." The key to making this happen? Frustration.

A team of scientists managed to use a laser pulse to create a crystal with giant repeating structures that are much larger than those in ordinary crystals, what’s known as a “supercrystal.”

But lasers have actually been used to transform materials into more ordered states of matter for decades, what made this instance particularly special was that this supercrystal could stay in that state for at least a year (potentially even longer had the study lasted longer).

This is one of the first examples of a material that achieved long-term stability after being rearranged using such a short laser pulse, and the key? A lot of frustration.

When blasted by photons from a laser, the electrons in matter get excited, before minimizing their energy again and quickly returning to their normal state. In that heightened phase, or on the way back down, the material might have properties the scientists are looking for, but scientists have to act fast to spot them because the properties might not stick around for long.

Scientists started with a crystal substrate they would use to grow single atomic layers of their material made of lead titanate and strontium titanate.

The scientists were looking for hidden states of matter by taking it out of its comfortable state, also known as its ground state. With the added energy from a sub-picosecond pulse of light the material arranged itself into repeating unit cells with a volume a million times greater than the lead titanate or strontium titanate it was based on.

It wasn’t just a crystal anymore. It was a supercrystal.

Learn more about the supercrystal and what it could mean for future research and the understanding of materials on this episode of Elements.

#Lasers #Supercrystal #StateOfMatter #Seeker #Elements #Science

This New State of Matter Is a Liquid and a Solid at the Same Time!

Read More:

Supercrystal: A hidden phase of matter created by a burst of light
"Frustration" plus a pulse of laser light resulted in a stable 'supercrystal' created by a team of researchers led by Penn State and Argonne National Laboratory, together with University of California, Berkeley, and two other national laboratories.."

Supercrystal. Creating a new state of matter
"Finding these states is done by a pump-probe technique when a laser fires a photon of blue light at the sample for 100 femtoseconds. The pump light excites the electrons into a higher energy state and is quickly followed by a probe light, which is a gentler pulse of light that reads the state of the material."

Physicists Captured a Hidden 'Supercrystal' State of Matter With a Laser Burst
"You can't make supercrystals out of any old matter. The team used alternating layers of single-atom thick lead titanate and strontium titanate, stacked into a three-dimensional structure. They grew these layers on a base (substrate) of dysprosium scandium oxide, whose crystals are in between the size of crystals formed by the two other materials."

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[pickin]

Later science will find out that matters also have "depression".

[Master_Therion]

I knew a High School science teacher who made "supercrystals." His name is Walter White.

[SolSystemDiplomat]

1:35 when you aren’t a child but realize their targeted demographic is children

[NikolaosSkordilis]

Did these material scientists make a model / simulation or did they actually (physically) construct this "supercrystal"? If they did the latter and the volume of the cells expanded by 1 million (!) times why show a computer rendering of them rather than an actual picture of them?

Crystal unit cells are in the nano scale, so if you blow them up 1 million times you reach the millimeter scale. At this point you do not even require an electron microscope to show the crystal cells, a conventional optical microscope is perfectly adequate to picture the cells _in full color, _ since the cells are _way_ larger than the diffraction limit.

So did they rather simulate the entire thing?

[mr.personhumanson]

I also use laser as a frustration tool for my cat

[Ironsight_Player]

1:35 no one wants to play fortnite we all know minecraft is more popular

[emilyrose]

Can scientist adjust the strength of the laser at different points of its beam during that picosecond to arrange into more complex structures?

[dhruvamehrotra]

My favorite part in this whole video is the bit about frustration.
And the reason is parents do tell you to 'pause' your multiplayer game.

[esselsid]

So this new state of matter is.... FRU-STATE???

(ba-dum-tssss)

[SarcasticDragonGaming]

Whenever you hear about a new scientific or technological development, 95% of the time, lasers and or magnets will be involved somewhere.

[excalibirb]

Nobody :

Seeker : blahblahblah *F* *O* *R* *T* *N* *I* *T* *E* blahblahblah

9-year-olds : OMG they know fortnite. *cheers* 😱

Noobmaster69 : _approves_

[stevenson]

Love material science. Please invent cool stuff. The world needs it.

[creatorsremose]

Do you really think, Seeker, that a person who plays Fortnite expresses any interest in this kind of video?

[xxportalxx.]

Not to be confused with the new forms of matter you'd encounter at Da Club after some lasers, crystal, and 'frustration' 😆

[hellcat]

If they can reliably move this material from one state to another with just heat and light, it may prove to be useful as a data storage medium.

[misteragb]

I don't know if this material could be used in electronics or if this technique could be aplied to other crystals or materials that can. But if so, it wouldn't surprise me that they (manufacturers) would, to ensure a more controlled and restricted lifespan.

[kwisclubta]

Ha! He said videos games and Fortnite, words my child-like mind can understand so I can grasp the scientific terminology that would otherwise be so over my head! I love being patronized like this. Keep it up, Seeker!

[wilderbeast]

This whole video had my like but you just had to say Fortnite... Naughty naughty! xD

[aaashee]

Hmm, actually they just discovered topological conductivity which is another new state of matter. Hope you can make a vid about it. 👏🏿

[chrisp]

Photons excite me too, especially when they change color.