Fundamental Equation for Superconducting Quantum Bits Revised

Cryogenic microwave setup used for quantum device measurements.
Photo Credit: Qinu GmbH

Quantum bits can be described more precisely with the help of newly 

Physicists from Forschungszentrum Jülich and the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology have uncovered that Josephson tunnel junctions – the fundamental building blocks of superconducting quantum computers – are more complex than previously thought. Just like overtones in a musical instrument, harmonics are superimposed on the fundamental mode. As a consequence, corrections may lead to quantum bits that are 2 to 7 times more stable. The researchers support their findings with experimental evidence from multiple laboratories across the globe, including the University of Cologne, Ecole Normale Supérieure in Paris, and IBM Quantum in New York.

It all started in 2019, when Dr. Dennis Willsch and Dennis Rieger – two PhD students from FZJ and KIT at the time and joint first authors of the paper – were having a hard time understanding their experiments using the standard model for Josephson tunnel junctions. This model had won Brian Josephson the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1973. Excited to get to the bottom of this, the team led by Professor Ioan Pop scrutinized further data from the Ecole Normale Supérieure in Paris and a 27-qubit device at IBM Quantum in New York, as well as data from previously published experiments. Independently, researchers from the University of Cologne were observing similar deviations of their data from the standard model.

Blue PHOLEDs: Final color of efficient OLEDs finally viable in lighting

Jaesang Lee, Electrical Engineering PhD Student, demonstrates use of an earlier blue PHOLED innovation by University of Michigan professor Steve Forrest’s research group in 2014. Forrest’s lab introduced PHOLEDs to the world in the early 2000s and has been trying to improve the lifetime of blue PHOLEDs ever since. Now, they might finally be hardy enough to use in lighting applications. Image credit: Joseph Xu, Michigan Engineering Communications & Marketing The blue LEDs were developed in EECS Professor Stephen Forrest’s lab groups and are for use in cell phones, tablets, and other electronics. The LEDs’ lifetime has been enhanced by a factor of ten, allowing for more efficient use.
Photo Credit: Joseph Xu, Michigan Engineering Communications & Marketing

Lights could soon use the full color suite of perfectly efficient organic light-emitting diodes, or OLEDs, that last tens of thousands of hours, thanks to an innovation from physicists and engineers at the University of Michigan.

The U-M team’s new phosphorescent OLEDs, commonly referred to as PHOLEDs, can maintain 90% of the blue light intensity for 10-14 times longer than other designs that emit similar deep blue colors. That kind of lifespan could finally make blue PHOLEDs hardy enough to be commercially viable in lights that meet the Department of Energy’s 50,000-hour lifetime target. Without a stable blue PHOLED, OLED lights need to use less-efficient technology to create white light.

The lifetime of the new blue PHOLEDs currently is only long enough to use as lighting, but the same design principle could be combined with other light-emitting materials to create blue PHOLEDs hardy enough for TVs, phone screens and computer monitors. Display screens with blue PHOLEDs could potentially increase a device’s battery life by 30%.

Scientists reveal superconductor with on-off switches

(A) The material used in this study consists of stacked layers of ferromagnetic atoms and superconducting atoms. (B) Applying a small magnetic field induces superconductivity, while (C) low temperatures boost that superconductivity.
Illustration Credit: Courtesy Shua Sanchez, University of Washington

As industrial computing needs grow, the size and energy consumption of the hardware needed to keep up with those needs grows as well. A possible solution to this dilemma could be found in superconducting materials, which can reduce that energy consumption exponentially. Imagine cooling a giant data center full of constantly running servers down to nearly absolute zero, enabling large-scale computation with incredible energy efficiency.

Physicists at the University of Washington and the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Argonne National Laboratory have made a discovery that could help enable this more efficient future. Researchers have found a superconducting material that is uniquely sensitive to outside stimuli, enabling the superconducting properties to be enhanced or suppressed at will. This enables new opportunities for energy-efficient switchable superconducting circuits. The paper was published in Science Advances.

Superconductivity is a quantum mechanical phase of matter in which an electrical current can flow through a material with zero resistance. This leads to perfect electronic transport efficiency. Superconductors are used in the most powerful electromagnets for advanced technologies such as magnetic resonance imaging, particle accelerators, fusion reactors and even levitating trains. Superconductors have also found uses in quantum computing.

Electronic pathways may enhance collective atomic vibrations’ magnetism

Andrey Baydin (left) and Fuyang Tay
Photo Credit: Gustavo Raskosky/Rice University

Materials with enhanced thermal conductivity are critical for the development of advanced devices to support applications in communications, clean energy and aerospace. But in order to engineer materials with this property, scientists need to understand how phonons, or quantum units of the vibration of atoms, behave in a particular substance.

“Phonons are quite important for studying new materials because they govern several material properties such as thermal conductivity and carrier properties,” said Fuyang Tay, a graduate student in applied physics working with the Rice Advanced Magnet with Broadband Optics (RAMBO), a tabletop spectrometer in Junichiro Kono’s laboratory at Rice University. “For example, it is widely accepted that superconductivity arises from electron–phonon interactions.

“Recently, there has been growing interest in the magnetic moment carried by phonon modes that show circular motion, also known as chiral phonons. But the mechanisms that can lead to a large phonon magnetic moment are not well understood.”

Now an international team of researchers led by Felix Hernandez from Brazil’s Universidade de São Paulo and Rice assistant research professor Andrey Baydin has published a study detailing the intricate connections between the magnetic properties of these quantum whirling dervishes and a material’s underlying topology of the electronic band structure, which determines the range of energy levels that electrons have within it.

Ultrafast lasers map electrons 'going ballistic' in graphene, with implications for next-gen electronic devices

Ultrafast Laser Lab.
Photo Credit: KU Marketing Communications

Research appearing in ACS Nano, a premier journal on nanoscience and nanotechnology, reveals the ballistic movement of electrons in graphene in real time.

The observations, made at the University of Kansas’ Ultrafast Laser Lab, could lead to breakthroughs in governing electrons in semiconductors, fundamental components in most information and energy technology.

“Generally, electron movement is interrupted by collisions with other particles in solids,” said lead author Ryan Scott, a doctoral student in KU’s Department of Physics & Astronomy. “This is similar to someone running in a ballroom full of dancers. These collisions are rather frequent — about 10 to 100 billion times per second. They slow down the electrons, cause energy loss and generate unwanted heat. Without collisions, an electron would move uninterrupted within a solid, similar to cars on a freeway or ballistic missiles through air. We refer to this as ‘ballistic transport.’”

Scott performed the lab experiments under the mentorship of Hui Zhao, professor of physics & astronomy at KU. They were joined in the work by former KU doctoral student Pavel Valencia-Acuna, now a postdoctoral researcher at the Northwest Pacific National Laboratory.

Zhao said electronic devices utilizing ballistic transport could potentially be faster, more powerful and more energy efficient.

Lightning, camera, gamma ray!

Lightning captured with the highspeed camera at 40,000 frames per second.
Photo Credit: Rasha Abbasi

In September 2021, an unprecedented thunderstorm blew across Utah’s West Desert. Lightning from this storm produced at least six gamma ray flashes that beamed downward to Earth’s surface and activated detectors at the University of Utah-led Telescope Array. The storm was noteworthy on its own—the array usually clocks one or two of the lightning-triggered gamma rays per year—but recent upgrades led to a new observation by the Telescope Array scientists and their lightning collaborators.

For the first time ever, they captured video footage of lightning-triggered downward terrestrial gamma-ray flashes (TGFs). A special camera running at 40,000 frames per second gave an unprecedented look at how gamma rays burst downwards to the Earth’s surface from cloud-to-ground lightning strikes. They found that not only were multiple gamma rays produced at later lightning stages than previously thought, but the rays were also associated with a pulse of optical light that had never been recorded.

“This is an important step in lightning research that could lead us to the physics producing these downward gamma rays,” said lead author Dr. Rasha Abbasi, now an assistant professor of physics at Loyola University Chicago. Abbasi began the research on TGFs as a postdoctoral scholar at the University of Utah.

Quantum batteries break causality

Charging quantum batteries in indefinite causal order.
In the classical world, if you tried to charge a battery using two chargers, you would have to do so in sequence, limiting the available options to just two possible orders. However, leveraging the novel quantum effect called ICO opens the possibility to charge quantum batteries in a distinctively unconventional way. Here, multiple chargers arranged in different orders can exist simultaneously, forming a quantum superposition.
Illustration Credit: ©2023 Chen et al.
CC BY-ND 4.0 DEED

Batteries that exploit quantum phenomena to gain, distribute and store power promise to surpass the abilities and usefulness of conventional chemical batteries in certain low-power applications. For the first time, researchers including those from the University of Tokyo take advantage of an unintuitive quantum process that disregards the conventional notion of causality to improve the performance of so-called quantum batteries, bringing this future technology a little closer to reality.

When you hear the word “quantum,” the physics governing the subatomic world, developments in quantum computers tend to steal the headlines, but there are other upcoming quantum technologies worth paying attention to. One such item is the quantum battery which, though initially puzzling in name, holds unexplored potential for sustainable energy solutions and possible integration into future electric vehicles. Nevertheless, these new devices are poised to find use in various portable and low-power applications, especially when opportunities to recharge are scarce.

Scientists Have Developed a Powder Model for 3D Printing Magnets

Nanocrystalline materials can serve as raw materials for 3D printing permanent magnets.
Photo Credit: Oksana Meleshchuk

Scientists of the Ural Federal University have described the processes of magnetization reversal of nanocrystalline alloys used as raw materials for 3D printing of magnetic systems. The description of the research and the results have been published in the Journal of Magnetism and Magnetic Materials. 

Permanent magnets are products made of hard magnetic materials capable of maintaining the state of magnetization for a long time. They are used as autonomous sources of magnetic field to convert mechanical energy into electrical energy and vice versa. Applications of permanent magnets include robotics, magnetic resonance imaging, production of wind generators, electric motors, mobile phones, high-quality speakers, home appliances, and hard disk drives.

The use of permanent magnets makes it possible to reduce the dimensions of some products and increase their efficiency. The development of power engineering and robotics, miniaturization of high-tech devices, and electric and hybrid vehicles require an annual increase in the production of permanent magnets and at the same time improvement of their magnetic properties. At the same time, one of the most important tasks in the production of permanent magnets is to increase their coercivity (the value of the external magnetic field strength required for complete demagnetization of a ferro- or ferrimagnetic substance).

Searching for axions with the ATLAS detector

Professor Dr. Matthias Schott
Photo Credit: Sabrina Hopp

The research group of Professor Matthias Schott of the PRISMA+ Cluster of Excellence at Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz (JGU) today published the results of an extensive series of measurements at the ATLAS detector of the Large Hadron Collider (LHC). The data were recorded during the second runtime of the LHC between 2015 and 2018. The aim of the experimentally challenging measurement program is to search for axion-like particles that could be produced in certain decays of the Higgs particle - and as novel particles could explain the deviation of the experimentally determined anomalous magnetic moment of the muon from its theoretical prediction. The work is funded by an ERC Consolidator Grant from Matthias Schott. They represent the experimental test of an axion model developed by Prof. Dr. Matthias Neubert, theoretical physicist and spokesperson of PRISMA+, and are thus an ideal example of the valuable interplay between theory and experiment at the Mainz site.

Axions are hypothetical elementary particles that were initially postulated to solve a theoretical shortcoming of the strong interaction, the so-called strong CP problem. For many years, axions or axion-like particles (ALPs) have also been considered promising candidates for dark matter. "Against this background, physicists have developed numerous experiments to search for very light ALPs in particular," explains Prof. Dr. Matthias Schott.

Atomic dance gives rise to a magnet

Tong Lin (from left), Hanyu Zhu and Jiaming Luo at EQUAL lab.
Photo Credit: Jeff Fitlow/Rice University

Quantum materials hold the key to a future of lightning-speed, energy-efficient information systems. The problem with tapping their transformative potential is that, in solids, the vast number of atoms often drowns out the exotic quantum properties electrons carry.

Rice University researchers in the lab of quantum materials scientist Hanyu Zhu found that when they move in circles, atoms can also work wonders: When the atomic lattice in a rare-earth crystal becomes animated with a corkscrew-shaped vibration known as a chiral phonon, the crystal is transformed into a magnet.

According to a study published in Science, exposing cerium fluoride to ultrafast pulses of light sends its atoms into a dance that momentarily enlists the spins of electrons, causing them to align with the atomic rotation. This alignment would otherwise require a powerful magnetic field to activate, since cerium fluoride is naturally paramagnetic with randomly oriented spins even at zero temperature.

Physicists trap electrons in a 3D crystal for the first time

The rare electronic state is thanks to a special cubic arrangement of atoms (pictured) that resembles the Japanese art of “kagome.” 
Image Credit: Courtesy of the researchers / MIT

Electrons move through a conducting material like commuters at the height of Manhattan rush hour. The charged particles may jostle and bump against each other, but for the most part they’re unconcerned with other electrons as they hurtle forward, each with their own energy.

But when a material’s electrons are trapped together, they can settle into the exact same energy state and start to behave as one. This collective, zombie-like state is what’s known in physics as an electronic “flat band,” and scientists predict that when electrons are in this state, they can start to feel the quantum effects of other electrons and act in coordinated, quantum ways. Then, exotic behavior such as superconductivity and unique forms of magnetism may emerge.

Now, physicists at MIT have successfully trapped electrons in a pure crystal. It is the first time that scientists have achieved an electronic flat band in a three-dimensional material. With some chemical manipulation, the researchers also showed they could transform the crystal into a superconductor — a material that conducts electricity with zero resistance.

TUM makes first daily current measurements of changes in the earth's rotation

The ring laser in Wettzell has been continuously improved since its commissioning.
Photo Credit: Astrid Eckert / TUM 

Researchers at the Technical University of Munich (TUM) have succeeded in measuring the earth's rotation more exactly than ever before. The ring laser at the Geodetic Observatory Wettzell can now be used to capture data at a quality level unsurpassed anywhere in the world. The measurements will be used in determining the earth's position in space, will benefit climate research and will make climate models more reliable.

Care to take a quick step down to the basement and see how fast the earth has been turning in the last few hours? Now you can at the Geodetic Observatory Wettzell. TUM researchers have improved the ring laser there so that it can provide daily current data, which until now has not been possible at comparable quality levels.

What exactly does the ring laser measure? On its journey through space the earth rotates on its axis at slightly varying speeds. In addition, the axis around which the planet spins is not completely static, it wobbles a bit. This is because our planet is not completely solid, but is made up of various component parts, some solid, some liquid. So, the insides of the earth itself are constantly in motion. These shifts in mass accelerate or brake the planet's rotation, differences which can be detected using measurement systems like the TUM ring laser.

Under Pressure: Seeing the Squeeze in Living Organisms

Double emulsion droplet (pink and cyan) located in between cells (yellow) of a living zebrafish embryo. Monitoring the changes in droplet size allows scientists to measure the osmotic pressure in the tissue.
Image Credit: © PoL / Antoine Vian

In order to survive, organisms must control the pressure inside them, from the single-cell level to tissues and organs. Measuring these pressures in living cells and tissues in physiological conditions has been very challenging. Now, researchers from the Cluster of Excellence Physics of Life (PoL) at the Technical University in Dresden (TU Dresden), Germany, report in the journal Nature Communications a new technique to ‘visualize’ these pressures as organisms develop. These measurements can help understand how cells and tissues survive under pressure, and reveal how problems in regulating pressures lead to disease. 

When molecules dissolved in water are separated into different compartments, water has the tendency to flow from one compartment to another to equilibrate their concentrations, a process known as osmosis. If some molecules cannot cross compartments, a pressure imbalance, known as osmotic pressure, builds up across them. This principle is the basis for many technical applications, such as the desalination of seawater or the development of moisturizing creams. It turns out that maintaining a healthy functioning organism makes the list too. 

Researchers demonstrate novel technique to observe molten salt intrusion in nuclear-grade graphite

From left, Yuxuan Zhang, James Keiser, Jisue Moon, Cristian Contescu, Erik Stringfellow (back) and Nidia Gallego, with Dino Sulejmanovic (not shown), first visualized molten salt distribution in graphite pores.
Photo Credit: Carlos Jones/ORNL, U.S. Dept. of Energy

In response to a renewed international interest in molten salt reactors, researchers from the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory have developed a novel technique to visualize molten salt intrusion in graphite.

During ORNL’s revolutionary Molten Salt Reactor Experiment, or MSRE, in the 1960s, scientists first demonstrated the feasibility of nuclear fission reactions with molten fluoride salt used both as a fuel carrier and as a coolant, substituting for the solid fuel and water used in traditional nuclear reactors. Molten salt reactor designs show great promise as a means of carbon-free power generation.

To slow down neutrons so they can easily promote nuclear fission, nuclear reactors use a material called a moderator. To moderate the MSRE, scientists used synthetic graphite, which is resistant to thermal shock and dimensionally stable because of its extensive pore system resulting from the manufacturing process. MSRE graphite was custom-made and specially coated to decrease porosity and defend against detrimental effects that may occur when hydraulic and gas pressures cause molten salt to seep into graphite’s pores. Moreover, preventing molten salt intrusion avoids additional issues with waste management during reactor decommissioning.

The importance of the Earth's atmosphere in creating the large storms that affect satellite communications

Illustration Credit: ERG Science Team

A study from an international team led by researchers from Nagoya University in Japan and the University of New Hampshire in the United States has revealed the importance of the Earth’s upper atmosphere in determining how large geomagnetic storms develop. Their findings reveal the previously underestimated importance of the Earth’s atmosphere. Understanding the factors that cause geomagnetic storms is important because they can have a direct impact on the Earth’s magnetic field such as causing unwanted currents in the power grid and disrupting radio signals and GPS. This research may help predict the storms that will have the greatest consequences. 

Scientists have long known that geomagnetic storms are associated with the activities of the Sun. Hot charged particles make up the Sun's outer layer, the one visible to us. These particles flow out of the Sun creating the ‘solar wind’, and interact with objects in space, such as the Earth. When the particles reach the magnetic field surrounding our planet, known as the magnetosphere, they interact with it. The interactions between the charged particles and magnetic fields lead to space weather, the conditions in space that can affect the Earth and technological systems such as satellites.  

New Frequency Comb Can Identify Molecules in 20-Nanosecond Snapshots

A new frequency comb setup can capture the moment-by-moment details of carbon dioxide gas escaping from a nozzle at supersonic speeds in an air-filled chamber, followed by rapid oscillations of gas due to complex aerodynamics within the chamber. The data plot shows the absorbance of light (vertical) over time (horizontal left to right) across a range of frequencies (horizontal forward to back).
Illustration Credit: G. Mathews/University of Colorado Boulder

From monitoring concentrations of greenhouse gases to detecting COVID in the breath, laser systems known as frequency combs can identify specific molecules as simple as carbon dioxide and as complex as monoclonal antibodies with unprecedented accuracy and sensitivity. Amazing as they are, however, frequency combs have been limited in how fast they can capture a high-speed process such as hypersonic propulsion or the folding of proteins into their final three-dimensional shapes.

Now, researchers at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), Toptica Photonics AG and the University of Colorado Boulder have developed a frequency comb system that can detect the presence of specific molecules in a sample every 20 nanoseconds, or billionths of a second. With this new capability, researchers can potentially use frequency combs to better understand the split-second intermediate steps in fast-moving processes ranging from the workings of hypersonic jet engines to the chemical reactions between enzymes that regulate cell growth. The research team announced its results in a paper published in Nature Photonics.

Spinaron: A Rugby in a Ball Pit. New Quantum Effect Demonstrated for the First Time

The cobalt atom (red) has a magnetic moment (“spin,” blue arrow ), which is constantly reoriented (from spin-up to spin-down) by an external magnetic field. As a result, the magnetic atom excites the electrons of the copper surface (gray), causing them to oscillate (creating ripples). This revelation by the Würzburg-Dresden Cluster of Excellence ct.qmat was made possible thanks to the physicists’ inclusion of an iron tip (yellow) on their scanning tunneling microscope.
Illustration Credit: © Juba Bouaziz/Ulrich Puhlfürst

For the first time, experimental physicists from the Würzburg-Dresden Cluster of Excellence ct.qmat have demonstrated a new quantum effect aptly named the “spinaron.” In a meticulously controlled environment and using an advanced set of instruments, they managed to prove the unusual state a cobalt atom assumes on a copper surface. This revelation challenges the long-held Kondo effect – a theoretical concept developed in the 1960s, and which has been considered the standard model for the interaction of magnetic materials with metals since the 1980s. These groundbreaking findings were published today in the esteemed journal Nature Physics.

Ultra-Cold & Ultra-Strong: Pushing Boundaries in the Lab

Extreme conditions prevail in the Würzburg laboratory of experimental physicists Professor Matthias Bode and Dr. Artem Odobesko. Affiliated with the Cluster of Excellence ct.qmat, a collaboration between JMU Würzburg and TU Dresden, these visionaries are setting new milestones in quantum research. Their latest endeavor is unveiling the spinaron effect. They strategically placed individual cobalt atoms onto a copper surface, brought the temperature down to 1.4 Kelvin (–271.75° Celsius), and then subjected them to a powerful external magnetic field. “The magnet we use costs half a million euros. It’s not something that’s widely available,” explains Bode. Their subsequent analysis yielded unexpected revelations.

Better batteries for electric cars

Eric Ricardo Carreon Ruiz (left) and Pierre Boillat in front of part of PSI's Swiss spallation neutron source SINQ. There, at the BOA experimental station, they conducted their investigations.
Photo Credit: Paul Scherrer Institute/Mahir Dzambegovic

PSI researchers are using neutrons to make changes in battery electrolytes visible. The analysis enables better understanding of the physical and chemical processes and could aid in the development of batteries with better characteristics. The results have now been published in Science Advances.

The range is too limited, charging is too slow when it’s cold . . . the list of prejudices against electric cars is long. Even though progress is rapid, batteries remain the critical component for electromobility – as well as for many other applications, from smartphones to large storage devices designed to stabilize the power grid. The problem: Battery developers still lack a full understanding of what is happening, chemically and physically, during charging and discharging, especially in liquid electrolytes between the two electrodes through which charge carriers are exchanged.

Now Eric Ricardo Carreon Ruiz of PSI is bringing light into this darkness. A doctoral researcher in Pierre Boillat’s group at PSI, he is using neutrons from the Swiss spallation neutron source SINQ to investigate different electrolytes, studying for example their behavior at fluctuating temperatures. His results provide important insights that could help in the development of new electrolytes and higher-performance batteries.

Scientists Modeled How to Improve Thrombosis Treatment

Physicists led by Andrey Zubarev have calculated how to increase the speed of drug delivery.
Photo Credit: Anna Marinovich

Scientists from the Ural Federal University and the Côte d'Azur University (France) have developed a mathematical model to improve the delivery of drugs that restore blood flow in thrombosed blood vessels. The scientific paper was published in the Journal of Magnetism and Magnetic Materials. 

Thrombosis of the blood vessels is a serious and difficult-to-treat condition that can often be fatal. The main method of treating thrombosis is the injection of thrombolytics - drugs that dissolve blood clots and restore blood flow. However, thrombolytics spread too slowly in a vessel with blocked blood flow, significantly reducing the effectiveness of the treatment.

"Attempts are being made to accelerate the distribution of thrombolytics through various physical effects. For example, researchers at the University of Texas have proposed introducing a drop of magnetic nanoparticles into a thrombosed vessel and then subjecting it to an alternating - oscillating or, for example, rotating - magnetic field. As a result, the nanoparticles should be set into rotational and translational motion, involving the surrounding fluid, i.e. the blood in the vessel, in this motion. This should lead to the intensification of the mixing of a drop of thrombolytic agent with blood and accelerate the "spreading" of the drop through the vessel. As a result, the drug reaches the thrombus more quickly," describes Andrey Zubarev, professor at the Department of Theoretical and Mathematical Physics at UFU, head of the development of the mathematical model and co-author of the article.

Researchers probe molten rock to crack Earth’s deepest secrets

Deep inside rocky planets like Earth, the behavior of iron can greatly affect the properties of molten rock materials: properties that influenced how Earth formed and evolved. Scientists used powerful lasers and ultrafast X-rays to recreate the extreme conditions in these molten rock materials, called silicate melts, and measure properties of iron. 
Illustration Credit: Greg Stewart/SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory

Deep inside rocky planets like Earth, the behavior of iron can greatly affect the properties of molten rock materials: properties that influenced how Earth formed and evolved. 

In fact, the evolution of our entire planet may be driven by the microscopic quantum state of these iron atoms. One special feature of iron is its “spin state,” which is a quantum property of the electrons in each iron atom that drives their magnetic behavior and reactivity in chemical reactions. Changes in the spin state can influence whether iron prefers to be in the molten rock or in solid form and how well the molten rock conducts electricity.

Until now, it’s been challenging to recreate the extreme conditions in these molten rock materials, called silicate melts, to measure the spin state of iron. Using powerful lasers and ultrafast X-rays, an international team of researchers at the Department of Energy’s SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, Stanford University, Universite ́ Grenoble Alpes, Laboratoire pour l’Utilisation des Lasers Intenses (LULI), and Arizona State University overcame this challenge. They showed that at extremely high pressures and temperatures, the iron in silicate melts mostly has a low-spin state, meaning its electrons stay closer to the center and pair up in their energy levels, making the iron less magnetic and more stable.