Scientists announced the first observation of a dynamic vortex Mott transition, which experimentally connects the worlds of quantum mechanics and classical physics and could shed light on the poorly understood world of non-equilibrium physics. Credit: Image courtesy Valerii Vinokur, Argonne National Laboratory/Science
It also could shed light on non-equilibrium physics, which is poorly understood but governs most of what occurs in our world. The finding may also represent a step towards more efficient electronics based on the Mott transition.
Magnetic fields penetrate superconducting material in the form of tiny filaments called vortices, which control the electronic and magnetic properties of the materials. These vortices display both classical and quantum properties, which led researchers to study them for access to one of the most enigmatic phenomena of modern condensed matter physics: Mott insulator-to-metal transition.
At the University of Twente, researchers built a system containing 90,000 superconducting niobium nano-sized islands on top of a gold film. In this configuration, the vortices find it energetically easiest to settle into energy dimples in an arrangement like an egg crate – and make the material act as a Mott insulator, since the vortices won’t move if the applied electric current is small. When they applied a large enough electric current, however, the scientists saw a dynamic Mott transition as the system flipped to become a conducting metal; the properties of the material had changed as the current pushed it out of equilibrium.
The system could further provide scientists with insight into two categories of physics that have been hard to understand: many-body systems and out-of-equilibrium systems.
Nearly everything in our lives involves energy flow, from photosynthesis to digestion to tropical cyclones, and we don’t yet have the physics to describe it well. Scientists think a better understanding could lead to huge improvements in energy capture, batteries and energy storage, electronics and more.
As we seek to make electronics faster and smaller, Mott systems also offer a possible alternative to the silicon transistor. Since they can be flipped between conducting and insulating with small changes in voltage, they may be able to encode 1s and 0s at smaller scales and higher accuracy than silicon transistors.
http://www.anl.gov/articles/team-announces-breakthrough-observation-mott-transition-superconductor
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