Almost an oxymoron, but this is a sixth state of matter. Four of which we encounter in everyday experience, them being: solid, liquid, gas and plasma. The fifth is Bose-Einstein Condensate which was first discovered in 1995.
BECs are formed from atoms which all exist in the same quamtum state and when in this state, the individual atoms behave like a single super-atom, analogous to photons in a beam of coherent light such as that produced by LASERs. However, all BECs are formed from bosons, particles such as photons and alpha particles which have zero or integer quantum spin. Fermions however, have fractional quantum spin and because of the Pauli Exclusion Principle, cannot occupy the same quantum state. Fermions include particles like the electron, electrons and neutrons.
What’s the big fuss then? Well… electrons form a fermionic condensate in superconductors by forming “Cooper Pairs”, where the half spin of each electron adds up to form an integer. Now this is the first time this has been done with an atomic gas, Potassium-40 to be more precise. As such condensates straddle the gap between superfluids and superconductors, studying them should give up better insight to these exotic states of matter.
Snippet of the NIST/University of Colorado press release:
Scientists at JILA, a joint laboratory of the Department of Commerce’s National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and the University of Colorado at Boulder (CU-Boulder) report the first observation of a “fermionic condensate” formed from pairs of atoms in a gas, a long-sought, novel form of matter. Physicists hope that further research with such condensates eventually will help unlock the mysteries of high-temperature superconductivity, a phenomenon with the potential to improve energy efficiency dramatically across a broad range of applications.
The research is described in a paper to be published in the Jan. 24-30 online edition of Physical Review Letters by JILA authors Deborah S. Jin, a physicist at NIST and an adjoint associate professor at CU-Boulder, and Markus Greiner and Cindy Regal, a post-doctoral researcher and graduate student at CU-Boulder.
The strength of pairing in our fermionic condensate, adjusted for mass and density,Jin explains,would correspond to a room temperature superconductor. This makes me optimistic that the fundamental physics we learn through fermionic condensates will eventually help others design more practical superconducting materials.
A revolution may be coming our way… :D