Supersolid tagged posts

A small international team of nanotechnologists, engineers and physicists has developed a way to force laser light into becoming a supersolid. Their paper is published in the journal Nature. The editors at Nature have published a Research Briefing in the same issue summarizing the work.

Supersolids are entities that exist only in the quantum world, and, up until now, they have all been made using atoms. Prior research has shown that they have zero viscosity and are formed in crystal-like structures similar to the way atoms are arranged in salt crystals.

Because of their nature, supersolids have been created in extremely cold environments where the quantum effects can be seen...

Researchers report on the observation of supersolid behavior in dipolar quantum gases of erbium and dysprosium. In the dysprosium gas these properties are unprecedentedly long-lived. This sets the stage for future investigations into the nature of this exotic phase of matter.

Supersolidity is a paradoxical state where the matter is both crystallized and superfluid. Predicted 50 years ago, such a counter-intuitive phase, featuring rather antithetic properties, has been long searched in superfluid helium...