A new era in technology awaits us

Scientists have discovered a new exotic, strange state of materials in contact with an environment that alters its physical properties in the presence of an electromagnetic field, leading to better quantum technologies, which are tunable and controllable as per the user requirements.

Though this sounds a bit complicated for ordinary minds, it should be understood that quantum technologies could bring in yet another round of revolutionary changes in technology that could make life easier for people.

Indian scientists now have shown that, in an external electromagnetic field, geometric properties of a crystalline solid with lattices arranged in a one-dimensional periodic manner can display phase transitions, thereby altering its physical properties.

The 2016 Nobel Prize for physics was awarded to the theoretical discoveries of topological phase transitions and topological phases of matter, which have played a significant role in the modern understanding of materials and their applications.

Topology is concerned with the properties of a geometric object preserved under continuous deformations, such as stretching and twisting. Understanding various phases and phase transitions is of central importance in the study of matter.

Generally, phase transitions are studied by assuming that the system is isolated, with little or negligible environmental interactions. Dibyendu Roy, Associate Professor, and his group from Raman Research Institute (RRI), an autonomous institute of the Department of Science & Technology, have been exploring systems in contact with the environment or the open quantum systems and their physical properties for a while.

They explored ways to control the topological phase transitions of matter in contact with an environment by an external periodic perturbation such as laser light in their present work. While studying the geometric phase in systems in contact with an environment and examining the environment's consequence on the band-structure topology of the systems, they discovered a new metallic state of the materials coupled to an environment.

This work funded by the Department of Science and Technology, India, via the Ramanujan Fellowship, and the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY), India, under a grant for "Centre for Excellence in Quantum Technologies" has been published in the journal 'Physical Review B' recently.

In our everyday lives, several devices and technologies exploit some of the other aspects of quantum physics, like LEDs, semiconductor technology, and nanomaterials. Usually, the environmental interactions in such quantum systems are either neglected or are considered very small.

Through this work, the RRI team has shown that if such effects are carefully taken into account, one can drastically alter the quantum system's physical behaviour and lead to better quantum technologies.

When the technology is applied, our batteries last 10 years per charge and MRI scanners the size of smartphones could be launched and above all, we can also have Medical sensors that diagnose disease with nothing more than a breath sample.

By harnessing the quirks of the quantum world — we're talking electrons and individual photons of light, the fundamental components of nature — we stand to explore and develop a new era of technology unlike anything we've known. It's only a matter of exerting proper science to get there.