Argonne National Laboratory<\/a> now report coming tantalizingly closer.<\/p>\nAs explained by Argonne Senior Physicist and Group Leader Daniel Haskel, in these materials, it\u2019s not atoms that stay fluid as in an ordinary liquid, but the tiny magnetic orientations \u2014 or spins \u2014 of electrons. Each spin wants to \u200b\u201cget along\u201d with its neighbors by aligning in a way that keeps everyone content. But when the spins are pushed closer together under pressure, satisfying every neighbor becomes impossible. The result is a kind of magnetic deadlock \u2014 called frustration \u2014 in which the spins can no longer settle into any fixed arrangement. The result is a continuous, entangled dance of fluctuating spins, even when cooled to near absolute zero.<\/p>\n
\u201cAchieving this quantum spin state would be a major milestone,\u201d said Eduardo Poldi, a graduate student at the University of Illinois Chicago in Professor Russell Hemley\u2019s group, with a joint appointment at Argonne. \u200b\u201cSome types of quantum spin liquids could serve as a new platform for qubits, the basic building blocks of a quantum computer.\u201d<\/p>\n
In their latest experiment at Argonne\u2019s Advanced Photon Source (APS), a DOE Office of Science user facility, the team turned their attention to a crystalline material thought to possibly have the ingredients for a spin liquid. It is an oxide containing sodium, cobalt and antimony (NCSO).<\/p>\n
The material has special characteristics: Its cobalt atoms form a honeycomb pattern, like a beehive. That structure plays a key role. The electron spins tend to align perpendicular to the edges of each cell in the honeycomb, but at points where three edges meet, not all spins can align to satisfy their neighbors \u2014 creating a state of frustration (see image). Theoretical models predict that this frustration can host a quantum spin liquid with topological protection. In such a state, excitations can form that encode quantum information yet remain resistant to outside disturbance. That built-in protection could help protect fragile quantum states \u2014 an essential step toward stable quantum technologies.<\/p>\n
In earlier work, Argonne researchers found that extreme pressure can serve as a control knob to induce quantum spin behavior. Using two flat diamonds to squeeze the electrons together in a magnetic crystal, they suppressed a material\u2019s usual magnetic order and nudged it toward a spin liquid state.<\/p>\n
\u201cPressure provides a way to reduce the separation between atoms and their electrons,\u201d said APS Physicist Gilberto Fabbris. \u200b\u201cBy adjusting that distance, we can drive a magnetic crystal into a frustrated state. At a certain extreme pressure, magnetism disappears \u2014 and a spin liquid emerges.\u201d<\/p>\n
Achieving that state, however, is extraordinarily difficult. The pressure must be high enough to suppress magnetic order yet applied in a way that does not damage the crystal\u2019s internal symmetry. Using specialized diamond anvil cells at APS, the researchers were able to compress the NCSO to over 1 million atmospheres \u2014 roughly 1,000 times the pressure at the bottom of the ocean \u2014 all within a region smaller than the width of a human hair.<\/p>\n
The team used three APS beamlines to analyze their NCSO sample from room temperature down to around absolute zero and from one to 1 million atmospheres. In particular, they performed X-ray diffraction and emission spectroscopy at beamlines 16-BM-D and 16-ID-D to unravel the atomic structure and electron spins of the NCSO over the wide range of temperature and pressure. They also used beamline 4-ID-D to track the changing magnetic properties.<\/p>\n
Especially important, Poldi noted, was the ability at APS to measure the spin state within an atom and the spin-spin correlations between atoms under extreme pressures. The APS is the only facility in the United States where such an experiment is possible.<\/p>\n
Source<\/a>: Joseph E. Harmon, Argonne National Laboratory<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Could the future of quantum computing lie in the mysterious dance of electron spins under extreme pressure? In…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":180993,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[21],"tags":[64,63,257,105],"class_list":{"0":"post-180992","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-computing","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-computing","11":"tag-technology"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/180992","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=180992"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/180992\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/180993"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=180992"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=180992"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=180992"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.hpcwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/16x9_Quantum-spin-liquid_new.jpg\")
<\/a>Topologically protected quantum spin liquid under extreme pressure in diamond anvil cell. Honeycomb structure shown with frustrated and entangled electron spins. Credit: Argonne National Laboratory.<\/p>\n