![\"Responsive](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/Website-Banner-Quantum-2.gif\")
<\/a><\/p>\nThe discovery was supported, in part, by the U.S. National Science Foundation and the U.S. Department of Energy and pertains to what are called quantum oscillations. These oscillations are found in metals and can be thought of as a phenomenon in which the metal\u2019s electrons act like springs, Li said. By applying a magnetic field, researchers can change the speed with which those electron springs wiggle.<\/p>\n
But, over the past several years, researchers have discovered the same quantum oscillations in insulators\u2014nonmetals that don\u2019t typically conduct heat or electricity. This led to a question that has stymied the field: Are those oscillations originating at only the surface of the material or is the behavior something that comes from within the material\u2019s bulk?<\/p>\n
From the standpoint of applications, the surface would be the more enthralling answer. Scientists are already exploring materials called topological insulators, which demonstrate metal-like behaviors at their surfaces while maintaining an insulator identity in their bulk, to enable new electronic, optical and quantum technologies.<\/p>\n
But working with the world\u2019s largest and most powerful magnet lab in the world, the National Magnetic Field Laboratory, Li and his colleagues have provided evidence that the quantum oscillations arise from the bulk.<\/p>\n
\u201cI wish I knew what to do with that, but at this stage we have no idea,\u201d Li said. \u201cWhat we have right now is experimental evidence of a remarkable phenomenon, we\u2019ve recorded it and, hopefully, at some point, we\u2019ll realize how to use it.\u201d<\/p>\n
The team included more than a dozen collaborators from six institutions in the U.S. and Japan. In addition to Li, the team included research fellow Kuan-Wen Chen and graduate students Yuan Zhu, Guoxin Zheng, Dechen Zhang, Aaron Chan and Kaila Jenkins from U-M.<\/p>\n
\u201cFor years, scientists have pursued the answer to a fundamental question about the carrier origin in this exotic insulator: Is it from the bulk or the surface, intrinsic or extrinsic?\u201d Chen said. \u201cWe are excited to provide clear evidence that it is bulk and intrinsic.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Li likes to think of this work as exploring the frontiers of what he calls the \u201cnew duality.\u201d In this context, the original or \u201cold\u201d duality came with the advent of quantum mechanics more than a century ago. During this time, scientists were showing that light and matter exhibit both particle and wave-like behaviors. This idea proved to be pivotal, not only in fundamental physics, but in developing technologies like solar cells and electron microscopes that are now commonplace.<\/p>\n
To Li, the new duality is the ability of materials to behave as both conductors and insulators. To explore quantum oscillations in this context, his team used experiments with a material called ytterbium boride, or YbB12, inside a very strong magnetic field.<\/p>\n
\u201cEffectively, we\u2019re showing that this naive picture where we envisioned a surface with good conduction that\u2019s feasible to use in electronics is completely wrong,\u201d Li said. \u201cIt\u2019s the whole compound that behaves like a metal even though it\u2019s an insulator. Unfortunately, this crazy metal behavior only occurs at 35 Tesla\u2014a magnetic field strength that\u2019s about 35 times what\u2019s inside an MRI machine.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
So, while the applications may not be immediately obvious, there are no shortage of questions to ask about the behavior and how researchers might capitalize on it in less extreme conditions.<\/p>\n
\u201cConfirming that the oscillations are bulk and intrinsic is exciting,\u201d Zhu said. \u201cWe don\u2019t yet know what kind of neutral particles are responsible for the observation. We hope our findings motivate further experiments and theoretical work.\u201d<\/p>\n
Additional funding for the project was provided by the Institute for Complex Adaptive Matter, Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation, Japan Society for the Promotion of Science and Japan Science and Technology Agency.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Insider Brief Researchers at the University of Michigan and collaborating institutions have discovered quantum oscillations arising from within…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":119193,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[61,71352,60,71353,82,6459],"class_list":["post-119192","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-science","tag-ie","tag-insulators","tag-ireland","tag-quantum-oscillation","tag-science","tag-university-of-michigan"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/119192","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=119192"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/119192\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/119193"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=119192"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=119192"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=119192"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}