A new innovation enables the production of time crystals for the first time without the need for supercooling

This innovation paves the way for the creation of chip-sized time crystals that can be used in our daily lives, without the expensive laboratory equipment that was required to operate them.

The fourth dimension - time - has always puzzled the minds of humans, starting with its adaptation in Einstein's theory of relativity, to his being given a symbolic starring in time travel films.

Since it is an imperceptible dimension like the other three spatial dimensions (length, width, and height), our minds become thirsty and thirsty when you think about it. This is what St. Augustine describes when he says, “I know the time unless I ask about it. As soon as I aspire to explain it to those who ask me, I find that I do not know it clearly.”

Is it possible to see this dimension of an abstract nature in something tangible and tangible?

Let us admit that thinking about time is like “plowing the surface of the sea,” as the French physicist Étienne Klein says in his book “Le Temps existe-t-il?” However, "time crystals" have changed this hypothesis.

Crystal properties

"Crystals" are formed by aligning atoms and molecules in a regular, constant, repetitive spatial arrangement that is restricted in the three spatial dimensions.

To put it simply, it's like you and your fans are sitting in specific seats and at a regular distance from each other, forming regular patterns - say hexagons - and repeating while holding each other's hand; As you create an interconnected network that does not move much and is repeated in the stadium seats.

By analogy, the atoms and molecules that make up the crystal are aligned in a similar manner in the three spatial dimensions, forming what is known as the crystal lattice. Although crystal lattices may differ in their structure, they do not move or change much within a single structure, but only repeat spatially.

When the carbon atoms are lined up side by side at specific points to form a diamond crystal, they break their usual spatial symmetry in a vacuum, which is known as the “Spatial Transitional Symmetry” break; Hence, the diamond crystal takes repeating patterns in place.

Break temporal symmetry

However, theoretical physicist Frank Wilczek - winner of the Nobel Prize in 2004 - theoretically proposed the existence of a strange state for crystals in 2012, which he called "time crystals"; These crystals can repeat their regular patterns in time. Thus, the characteristic patterns of the crystal lattice that make up that crystal change - and rearrange themselves - regularly over time.

Indeed, in 2017, scientists monitored - in two separate studies - the presence of these "time crystals" that change their patterns - repeating and regular - over time, which means that these crystals break the time-transitional symmetry.

The atoms that make up the time crystals behave a little differently, as they are "spinning" first in one direction, and then continue in the other direction. These oscillations - which are referred to as "ticking" - have a specific and regular frequency, which allows the repetition of crystal patterns in both time and space. Producing and studying these "time crystals" requires laboratory equipment that operates at extremely low temperatures, close to absolute zero.

However, a recent study - published in the journal Nature Communications on February 14 - was able to create a time crystal without supercooling; This quantum photonic crystal was produced at room temperature.

Promising horizon

According to a press release published by the University of California, Riverside, the team first installed a "microresonator" - a disk made of magnesium fluoride glass, just one millimeter in diameter - and then shone two beams. of lasers on this resonator.

The results indicated that they could produce time crystals; Hence, these time crystals were produced in the same environment, without the need to isolate them and keep them at extremely low temperatures. Which Hussein Taheri, the lead author of the study, refers to as "a promising step towards the production of time crystals that allow them to be used in technological applications."

Taheri adds that "the exchange of energy with the ocean leads to the breakdown of the temporal arrangement of the system being tested, but this photosystem works to achieve a balance between it and its surroundings." Therefore, this innovation paves the way for the creation of chip-sized time crystals that can be used in our daily lives, without the expensive laboratory equipment that was required to operate them.