I know! I was just as giddy when Moose and Squirell discovered Upsidaisium.
Posted on 12/10/2017 6:23:31 AM PST by BenLurkin
Scientists have proven the existence of new form of matter called excitonium – which was first theorised almost 50 years ago. Researchers from University of California Berkeley and University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in the US studied non-doped crystals of the transition metal dichalcogenide titanium diselenide (1T-TiSe2).
Excitonium is a condensate – it exhibits macroscopic quantum phenomena, like a superconductor. It is 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.
... 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. In point of fact, the hole’s particle-like attributes are due to the collective behaviour of the surrounding crowd of electrons. However, that understanding makes the pairing no less strange and wonderful...
Until now, scientists have not had the experimental tools to positively distinguish whether what looked like excitonium was not in fact a Peierls phase. Peierls phases and exciton condensation share the same symmetry and similar observables.
Abbamonte and his team were able to overcome that challenge by using a novel technique they developed called momentum-resolved electron energy-loss spectroscopy (M-EELS). With their new technique, the group was able to measure collective excitations of the low-energy bosonic particles, the paired electrons and holes, regardless of their momentum.
(Excerpt) Read more at indianexpress.com ...
I’m sure after I get my morning coffee that I’ll be just giddy about this.
Excitonium - I thought at first it was what CNN reporters and others emit every time they think they have really got the President this time.
I keep thinking this has to be a joke, due to the name....
That was my first guess.
I know! I was just as giddy when Moose and Squirell discovered Upsidaisium.
Lord William Thomson Kelvin (1824-1907)
(The Temperature guy)
“There is nothing new to be discovered in physics now. “
Speaking to the British Association for the advancement of Science, 1900
Discovery never stops.
It’s very cool to be a human being.
Agreed. It is way too much like “Unobtanium”
Will they be able to put it in a pill?
Ahha! It just may be that the woman-abusing DIMs have been ingesting too much “excitonium”???
Yeah, getting a divorce tends to do that...
Hmm, either this article very poorly describes the phenomenon, or it is way outside of my understanding of quantum physics. Which, admittedly, is not great, since I only did a year of p-chem.
What I am having trouble with is the idea that an electron jumping from one quantum state to another leaves behind a hole that acts like a particle. For one thing, my understanding is that electrons are not particles as much as they are discreet energy packets. So, how can it leave a hole? And how can a hole behave like an anti-electron?
I’m hoping that the article was thoroughly peer-reviewed. I think I’ll withhold judgment until others have replicated the findings, preferably using alternate methods of observation. Otherwise, these researchers may simply be describing and interpreting an artifact. These things happen.
I could not have said it better myself.
I theorize people who get excited about this stuff are doing it for themselves since they made a wrong turn on the career path.
Not to be a Luddite though since somewhere sometime this may be important. I’m too ignorant to imagine when that might be though.
More good names for newly discovered forms of matter:
Neverendium
WTFium
holycrapium
yougottabeshittinmeium
Calling Sheldon, Leonard, Raj, and Howard....
Someone needs to explain this to me as if I’m Penny
“There is nothing new to be discovered in physics now. “
—
Speaking posthumously to Climate Change Activists, Kelvin repeated himself saying, “There is nothing new to be discovered in climate modeling now.” He added, “The science is settled.”
“For one thing, my understanding is that electrons are not particles as much as they are discreet energy particle.”
I was always taught electrons were waves until you isolated one, and then it became a point particle. I think Einstein came up with that duality.
Some time ago at Lowes, I bought a few 2x4s and cut off some of the twine, that is real light, to tie them down and tucked it in my back pocket. When I got to my truck, I realized that I had tucked the spool end into my pocket and walked at least one hundred feet to my truck, stringing it behind me. For that little moment, I experienced the brilliance of Einstein.
Researchers from University of California Berkeley ....... it has an unusual liberal spin pattern!
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.