SEOUL — A groundbreaking discovery has been made by South Korean scientists in collaboration with researchers from the United States, Britain, and Canada, unveiling the presence of dark states of electrons in solid materials for the first time, as announced by the Ministry of Science and ICT.
According to Yonhap News Agency, the research led by Professor Kim Keun-su at Yonsei University has marked a significant milestone in physics, with their findings published in the esteemed journal Nature Physics. The study, titled "Dark States of Electrons in a Quantum System with Two Pairs of Sublattices," explores the properties of dark states—specific conditions of electrons where they neither absorb nor emit photons, a phenomenon previously believed to be impossible in solid materials.
The team's discovery was made in the context of a high-temperature superconductor made of copper oxide, where certain electrons were identified as being in dark states. This revelation provides new insights into the quantum properties of materials and could have profound implications for the field of superconductivity.
Professor Kim highlighted the broader impact of their findings, stating that the identification of dark states in common materials could pave the way for solving persistent challenges in understanding high-temperature superconductivity. This area of research holds substantial promise for advancing technologies in energy, transportation, and medical fields due to the practicality of cooling such materials with liquid nitrogen.