UPI Science News
BATON ROUGE, La., Feb. 12, (UPI) -- Scientists say they have created a new
metal -- a new state of matter with its own unique set of properties -- that was
first mathematically predicted 60 years ago.
Writing in a recent issue of the scientific journal Nature, Dr. Roy Goodrich, a
physics professor at LSU, says the new metal looks like silver-grey slivers and
resembles thin pieces of ordinary lead.
``We don't know what the practical implications of this are yet,'' Goodrich
said. ``It's too new. But a lot of people will be looking at this.''
Donavan Hall, a National High Magnetic Field Laboratory scientist who worked
with Goodrich on the project, said the discovery ``is equivalent to opening up a
new field of experimental study. What we will find next is anybody's guess.''
The finding is significant, they said, because it validates a long- accepted
mathematical prediction.
``Even though we have known in theory about the Wigner crystal for more than 60
years, no material specimen has ever shown the crystal to be a physical reality.
This gives us an opportunity to investigate these interactions under a wide
variety of experimental conditions.''
What the LSU team has discovered was predicted in 1934 by Nobel Laureate Eugene
Wigner (``VIG' nuh), who came to America after the rise of Adolf Hitler, and who
eventually joined the faculty at Princeton University. He spent six weeks a year
at LSU from the mid 1960s to the late 1970s to teach and do research in the
physics department.
Wigner predicted that if a metal could be made with a sufficiently low number of
electrons, the electrons would line up in a certain way, giving it a unique set
of properties.
The first property is associated with what the scientists call ``electron
spin.'' Most metals have an even number of electrons orbiting the nucleus in
tightly bound pairs. Each electron, like a magnet, has a north and a south pole.
An electron's spin is determined by whether its north pole is up or down. When
electrons are paired, the researchers said, one pole is always up and the other
is always down.
When electrons in the new metal move, however, they move in formation. Unlike
the movement of electrons in a copper wire, which is random, the electrons in
this new material -- called lanthanum-doped calcium hexaboride -- maintain a
crystalline structure when they flow, moving in lock-step, according to
Goodrich.
He added that no one knows what the crystalline structure of the electron is,
yet, because the metal is so new that no one has had an opportunity to test it.
The scientists say the discovery is on a par with the 1995 creation of the
exotic state of matter known as the Bose-Einstein condensate. However, that
condensate requires expensive equipment and extremely low temperatures to create
and maintain. Lanthanum-doped calcium hexaboride is inexpensive to create and is
stable at room temperatures, meaning it will be easy for scientists to study it.
It took 11 scientists from the U.S., Switzerland and Brazil a year and a half to
create this Wigner crystal. Goodrich and Hall were charged with proving the new
substance is, indeed, a metal, and say they have now done so.
The National High Magnetic Field Laboratory is the only laboratory of its kind
in the Western Hemisphere. It provides scientists with unique high-field magnets
to explore phenomena at the extremes of magnetic fields, temperature and
pressure.
The metal was actually made by Zachary Fisk of the National High Magnetic Field
Laboratory in Tallahassee, Fla. He and his graduate student, David Young, added
a small bit of lanthanum to a combination of calcium and boron. The lanthanum
replaced some of the calcium and created a crystalline structure with the unique
properties.
(Written by Mushie Bolgla)
--"I don't know what the reverend Falwell keeps in HIS magic bag, but he shouldn'tsmoke it while watching children's television." --Mark Russell, 2/10/99"'Falwell' has got to be the most ironic name for a minister since 'Wildmon'.First runner-up: 'Pete Peters'." --me, 2/11/99