Physicists Excited by Discovery of New Form of Matter, Excitonium

Now I don't claim to understand this but it seems exciting , and weird .

Excitonium is a condensate—it exhibits macroscopic quantum phenomena, like a superconductor, or superfluid, or insulating electronic crystal. It’s made up of excitons, particles that are formed in a very strange quantum mechanical pairing, namely that of an escaped electron and the hole it left behind.

Its made from an escaped electron and the hole ?

It defies reason, but it turns out that when an electron, seated at the edge of a crowded-with-electrons valence band in a semiconductor, gets excited and jumps over the energy gap to the otherwise empty conduction band, it leaves behind a “hole” in the valence band. That hole behaves as though it were a particle with positive charge, and it attracts the escaped electron. When the escaped electron with its negative charge, pairs up with the hole, the two remarkably form a composite particle, a boson—an exciton.

The world of the very small is very strange indeed.

In point of fact, the hole’s particle-like attributes are attributable to the collective behavior of the surrounding crowd of electrons. But that understanding makes the pairing no less strange and wonderful.

So why should we care ?

“This result is of cosmic significance,” affirms Abbamonte. “Ever since the term ‘excitonium’ was coined in the 1960s by Harvard theoretical physicist Bert Halperin, physicists have sought to demonstrate its existence. Theorists have debated whether it would be an insulator, a perfect conductor, or a superfluid—with some convincing arguments on all sides. Since the 1970s, many experimentalists have published evidence of the existence of excitonium, but their findings weren’t definitive proof and could equally have been explained by a conventional structural phase transition.”
physics.illinois.edu...

Hope you're as confused as I am but I too am excited for Excitonium , it's not everyday a new form of matter is discovered and perhaps one day it could have real word uses as a superconductor or superfluid.

originally posted by: gortex
Now I don't claim to understand this but it seems exciting , and weird .

Of course it's exciting, it's Excitonium! Cool find.

ETA: Yes, I am confused as well. I just looked over at a friend and told him that Excitonium hurts my brain. All I got was confused looks.

but isn't there only a probability that that's where the electron was? how can they nail something down like that?

a reply to: gortex

Sounds like they found the "nothing" which is actually a "something" ...

a reply to: Malevotronic

Here's the explanation.

With their new technique, the group was able for the first time to measure collective excitations of the low-energy bosonic particles, the paired electrons and holes, regardless of their momentum. More specifically, the team achieved the first-ever observation in any material of the precursor to exciton condensation, a soft plasmon phase that emerged as the material approached its critical temperature of 190 Kelvin. This soft plasmon phase is “smoking gun” proof of exciton condensation in a three-dimensional solid and the first-ever definitive evidence for the discovery of excitonium.

I think that clears it up.

a reply to: gortex

Great post, helps satisfy my thirst for knowledge, not always understood BUT.....

The whole Universe is still a mystery due to the vast size, and yet we have the same problem at the polar opposite end of the scale, the realms of possibility are limitless.

also you stated "weird" and I then thought science

thus

a reply to: gortex

All I can get I'd that this exciton.. this hole acting as a positive particle pairs with an electron making a boson.. but it's not a boson that behaves like regular boson it's a composite boson with unique properties..

I don't understand the subatomic world well enough to know what this really means but it looks like it's leading to possibly new ways of messing with matter.

My own crazy theory is that our Periodic Table of Elements is obviously missing some huge pieces, and these may someday be filled with variations of matter that have multi-dimensional properties that link them together in some very subtle ways. My thought is that the complete Periodic Table of Elements will someday be shown as a three-dimensional structure (since we still have trouble representing multi-dimensional objects in 3-D space) with indications of extended dimensionality shown in some of the newly discovered pieces. Some of the elements might not even actually exist in our 3-D reality, but will be inferred from the PTOE structure.

I wish I was smart enough to put it together, but I'm not. They're going to have to be a mathematician who is also good at 3-D puzzles.

That's the fun thing with crystal lattices. While the atoms form a solid mesh, the electrons are free to flow as a fluid. Not every bond between atoms needs to be filled with an electron at all times, thus forming electron "holes". While electrons move in one direction, the holes where there aren't electrons are free to move in the opposite direction. This is what they have here, an electron and the space it previously occupied now coupled together to former a larger object, an exciton, which behaves as a particle on its own.

Electrons don't even need to move in straight lines, sometimes they can align their magnetic spin axis to form larger structures like vortices. Pairs of electrons can join together and move together to form superconductors. Then there are "frustrated crystals" where a perfectly geometric lattice such as a triangular or tetrahedral mesh can't form, but forms
a quasicrystal lattice instead. Then there are time crystals where the alignment of the atomic ions will flip direction in a regular pattern over time.

a reply to: stormcell

Thanks for the explanation stormcell

originally posted by: gortex
a reply to: Malevotronic

Here's the explanation.

"With their new technique, the group was able for the first time to measure collective excitations of the low-energy bosonic particles, the paired electrons and holes, regardless of their momentum. More specifically, the team achieved the first-ever observation in any material of the precursor to exciton condensation, a soft plasmon phase that emerged as the material approached its critical temperature of 190 Kelvin. This soft plasmon phase is “smoking gun” proof of exciton condensation in a three-dimensional solid and the first-ever definitive evidence for the discovery of excitonium."

I think that clears it up.

It seems to me the obvious question is whether they can use this stuff to power a Turboencabulator.

originally posted by: Soylent Green Is People
It seems to me the obvious question is whether they can use this stuff to power a Turboencabulator.

It will be able to power up both a Flux Capacitor and an Oscillation Overthruster.

So the termed Higg's Field is basically æther and the electron (electricity, energizer) interact as to the electron apparantly makes a hole in the æther (Higg's Field proper term) and then the two collapse because the æther attracts the energizer (electron) and they make something else entirely?

Surely, there is up and there is down. Then neither exist yet do and are both the same. Everything attracts everything and polars attract yet we are expanding.

Some massive vaccums which we pair with black suck everything up yet according to this logic, should be emanating everything at the same time?

Is plus minus and minus plus. is plus minus minus plus and minus plus plus minus the same thing etc.?

Is everything that simple? Nah..can't be. I'm just a man.

Now, if we could just figure out "unobtanium".

THAT would be something

originally posted by: Blue Shift
My own crazy theory is that our Periodic Table of Elements is obviously missing some huge pieces, and these may someday be filled with variations of matter that have multi-dimensional properties that link them together in some very subtle ways. My thought is that the complete Periodic Table of Elements will someday be shown as a three-dimensional structure (since we still have trouble representing multi-dimensional objects in 3-D space) with indications of extended dimensionality shown in some of the newly discovered pieces. Some of the elements might not even actually exist in our 3-D reality, but will be inferred from the PTOE structure.

I wish I was smart enough to put it together, but I'm not. They're going to have to be a mathematician who is also good at 3-D puzzles.

Yup this is probobly true...
Ive been thinking that the jumps we make
between them, might be to far. Maybe
we will find stuff in the area that seperates
the elements...

originally posted by: Blue Shift
My own crazy theory is that our Periodic Table of Elements is obviously missing some huge pieces, and these may someday be filled with variations of matter that have multi-dimensional properties that link them together in some very subtle ways. My thought is that the complete Periodic Table of Elements will someday be shown as a three-dimensional structure (since we still have trouble representing multi-dimensional objects in 3-D space) with indications of extended dimensionality shown in some of the newly discovered pieces. Some of the elements might not even actually exist in our 3-D reality, but will be inferred from the PTOE structure.

I wish I was smart enough to put it together, but I'm not. They're going to have to be a mathematician who is also good at 3-D puzzles.

I think so too. Perhaps someday there will be a periodic table of crystals. There are modified versions of the periodic table that show potential lattice shapes (triangular, hexagonal, square, tetrahedra, etc...) for each element as well as software that lets you design crystalline molecules:

dqino.ua.es...

Superconducting research is looking for that perfect formula for room temperature superconductors. Get the right combination of elements and it will be winning the national lottery.

en.wikipedia.org...

HgBa2Ca2Cu3O8 is the highest temperature superconductor found so far

The quantum state at macro-levels is going to be a field of strange discoveries!

Transition metal dichalcogenides (TMD) and 2D materials like boron nitride (aka, white graphene) when they stack together create materials called van der Waals heterostructures. The best of both materials are combined. What we make from those... well, it is like a Lego set! It could be anything!

The key is "transition phase" at ultra-low temperatures. Called Bose-Einstein condensates, that is another example of particles all sharing the same quantum state and behaving like a single particle. You have seen superfluid helium? That is a good example of a B-E condensate. Excitonium is yet another example but this time in a TMD and at the edge layer.

The great find is making this transition phase at room temperature! Our world changes that day! Power distribution without loss. Ultra output from wind turbines. Smaller engines. Low energy computers. Mag lev everything. Nuclear fusion would be easier...

It is finds like these that gives me hope in humanity's future!

originally posted by: madmac5150
Now, if we could just figure out "unobtanium".
THAT would be something

My grandfather used to own mines of upsidasium, adamantium, and ballonium.

a reply to: Blue Shift

In the early 1960's while learning about fundamental oscillating circuits I was taught that there is more energy receivable by crystal radio sets than there is used to power the transmitters. Seems to violate classic thermodynamics until they toss you down the rabbit hole with a better understanding of time and ZPE. They had been experimenting with Rubidium and the Casimir effect for atomic clocks in the late 1950's so this makes a good example of cold war unobtainium. I was being punished for asking if the Apollo program could actually put a man on the moon.

a reply to: gortex


Sounds like the stuff that the hole in a donut is made from.

Where's Phage? he should be all over this like...like...A Hollywood mogul on a starlet...But without the law suit 20 years hence.