\u201cIt\u2019s something that could lead to computers that aren\u2019t affected by radiation,\u201d Jauregui said.<\/p>\n
Then, as Jauregui noticed his listener wasn\u2019t quite grasping the importance of this, he added:<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s something that could be used during deep-space travel.\u201d<\/p>\n
It also means, among other things, that his work has access to money.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Professor Luis Jauregui, left, director of the Quantum Materials and Devices Lab, is pictured with postdoctoral researcher Jinyu Liu in Irvine on Wednesday, Sept. 24, 2025. Liu developed the material, hafnium pentatelluride, at the UC Irvine lab and is the first author of the paper. (Photo by Leonard Ortiz, Orange County Register\/SCNG)\n<\/p>\n
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Professor Luis Jauregui, center, director of the Quantum Materials and Devices Lab at UC Irvine is pictured with his team, clockwise from left, Angelina Paolucci, Andrew Dai, Samah Alawfi, Lauren Vukovich, Christopher Badolian, Jinyu Liu, and Anand Johnson in Irvine on Wednesday, Sept. 24, 2025. Jauregui\u2019s team have discovered a new state of quantum matter. (Photo by Leonard Ortiz, Orange County Register\/SCNG)\n<\/p>\n
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Professor Luis Jauregui, director of the Quantum Materials and Devices Lab at UC Irvine, is pictured inside the lab in Irvine on Wednesday, Sept. 24, 2025. Jauregui\u2019s team has discovered a new state of quantum matter. (Photo by Leonard Ortiz, Orange County Register\/SCNG)\n<\/p>\n
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Professor Luis Jauregui, director of the Quantum Materials and Devices Lab at UC Irvine, is pictured inside the lab in Irvine on Wednesday, Sept. 24, 2025. Jauregui\u2019s team has discovered a new state of quantum matter. (Photo by Leonard Ortiz, Orange County Register\/SCNG)\n<\/p>\n
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Professor Luis Jauregui, director of the Quantum Materials and Devices Lab at UC Irvine, in Irvine, on Wednesday, Sept. 24, 2025, holds a sample mount used to apply 70 Teslas to the material hafnium pentatelluride at Los Alamos National Laboratory. The material was developed at UC Irvine by Jinyu Liu, a postdoctoral researcher in Jauregui\u2019s lab and the first author of the paper. (Photo by Leonard Ortiz, Orange County Register\/SCNG)\n<\/p>\n
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Professor Luis Jauregui, director of the Quantum Materials and Devices Lab at UC Irvine, is pictured inside the lab in Irvine on Wednesday, Sept. 24, 2025. Jauregui\u2019s team has discovered a new state of quantum matter. (Photo by Leonard Ortiz, Orange County Register\/SCNG)\n<\/p>\n
Show Caption<\/p>\n
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Professor Luis Jauregui, left, director of the Quantum Materials and Devices Lab, is pictured with postdoctoral researcher Jinyu Liu in Irvine on Wednesday, Sept. 24, 2025. Liu developed the material, hafnium pentatelluride, at the UC Irvine lab and is the first author of the paper. (Photo by Leonard Ortiz, Orange County Register\/SCNG)\n<\/p>\n
Expand<\/a><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n Jauregui\u2019s lab is just a small cog in a much bigger (and growing) world of quantum research. Scientists at UCI, UCLA and Caltech, among others, are using the theories of quantum physics to prove the existence of new quantum materials and, ultimately, to create new products. Much of that work is getting private and public funding, even in a time when government spending on science is drying up, because the discoveries could fuel quantum computing, which is widely viewed as a potential growth industry over the next few decades.<\/p>\n But if that research didn\u2019t have a clear path to profit, the federal funding for it might shrink or go away entirely.<\/p>\n In July, the Union of Concerned Scientists issued a report<\/a> showing that during the first six months of this year, federal scientific research grants fell by half when compared to the same period of every year since 2016. The group also suggested that federal funding for basic research \u2013 code for scientific inquiry that isn\u2019t aimed at an as-yet identified new business or industry \u2013 is vanishing.<\/p>\n Many scientists, Jauregui included, say this version of austerity isn\u2019t just bad for researchers, they argue it\u2019s also short-sighted for taxpayers and consumers.<\/p>\n \u201cBasic research isn\u2019t a waste. It\u2019s anything but that,\u201d Jauregui said.<\/p>\n \u201cAll kinds of research can always lead to something.\u201d<\/p>\n Spin<\/p>\n The something recently proved to exist by Jauregui and a post-doctorate researcher in his lab, Jinyu Liu, is about this: excitons.<\/p>\n The word describes what happens when electrons are coerced to spin in tandem, as opposed to spinning in opposite directions, which is the default state of most electrons most of the time.<\/p>\n The spinning together business is nothing less than a new version of quantum matter.<\/p>\n Note the modifier. Quantum matter isn\u2019t the same as the non-quantum matter you may or may not have studied in high school chemistry.<\/p>\n That old-school definition says the stuff that makes up much of the known universe comes in four basic states \u2013 liquid, solid, gas and plasma (the stuff of the sun and stars and, as the name suggests, plasma balls). But in the quantum world, matter takes on other forms \u2013 superconductors, magnets, topological insulators and, potentially, a slew of other states that non-quantum scientists haven\u2019t even contemplated.<\/p>\n Quantum versions of matter don\u2019t replace the classics. Instead, they describe the behavior of electrons within a solid, such as hafnium, or iron, or any other hard element.<\/p>\n Which gets us to the Jauregui and Liu excitons.<\/p>\n About two years ago, Liu presented a paper to Jauregui that suggested problems in some existing theories about quantum stuff that are far too intricate to describe here.<\/p>\n What\u2019s key is this: In Jauregui\u2019s world, problems \u2013 and especially mistakes \u2013 are good.<\/p>\n \u201cMistakes \u2026 tell us nature isn\u2019t following the \u2018script,\u2019\u201d he said. \u201cThat\u2019s when things get exciting.\u201d<\/p>\n And the questions raised in Liu\u2019s paper, Jauregui added, \u201cdidn\u2019t fit conventional explanations.\u201d<\/p>\n Though the idea that electrons could form \u201choles\u201d (partner electrons) and spin in tandem with those partners was first theorized in the 1960s, and has been widely discussed among quantum scientists ever since, it had never been observed. That\u2019s because the conditions to make such an observation happen are, according to Jauregui, \u201cvery delicate.\u201d<\/p>\n How delicate?<\/p>\n To prove that excitons exist, Jauregui and Liu subjected electrons of the element hafnium to a magnetic field that was about 700 times more powerful than the magnets on your fridge. They conducted this test at a temperature more common in deep space than anywhere on Earth. \u201cSiberia,\u201d Jauregui said, \u201cis a lot warmer.\u201d<\/p>\n Such conditions are created at a lab in Los Alamos, New Mexico, the same place where much of the research and testing of the atomic bomb was conducted more than 80 years ago.<\/p>\n After many trips (most by Liu) to New Mexico, and a lot of late nights poring over data, they came to believe that they had, indeed, proven the existence of a new state of quantum matter.<\/p>\n Someday, their work could lead to new drivers for quantum computers \u2013 a type of computing that will swap out the binary, heat-producing guts of current computers with a form of computing that you might liken to a less chaotic version of the movie \u201cEverything Everywhere All at Once.\u201d Instead of tackling problems in a methodical (if increasingly fast) step-by-step method, as modern computers still do, quantum computers will conduct multiple steps simultaneously. And instead of electric-powered microchips, such computers could run on new chips that rely on, perhaps, the power produced by tandemly spinning electrons.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s still early days, but in principle these states could be building blocks for new types of quantum bits or devices,\u201d Jauregui said.<\/p>\n Taking stuff apart<\/p>\n The possibility makes Jauregui a rarity in 2025; a research scientist who isn\u2019t overly concerned with money.<\/p>\n \u201cFunding agencies want to support directions that open new frontiers. We have not received enough funding yet, but the (University of California\u2019s Office of the President, the National Science Foundation, and Los Alamos National Laboratories) are funding our lab. And our lab is becoming one of the few places worldwide working on correlated topological matter at this level, so we are definitely on the leading edge.\u201d<\/p>\n That \u201ccorrelated, topological matter\u201d is code for \u201cstuff.\u201d Whatever they are eventually called \u2013 chips or bits or transistors \u2013 the team in Jauregui\u2019s lab works to create devices that eventually could power quantum computers, including some that are using the theory proven by his recent experiments. Jauregui, a theorist and an engineer who said he grew up \u201cconstantly taking stuff apart\u201d in Peru, to parents with no science background, in a small town where his teachers eventually ran out of ways to challenge him.<\/p>\n \u201cI didn\u2019t envision being a quantum physicist back then, but there was a moment in high school, during my first taste of research, when I realized that discovery could actually be a job,\u201d he said. \u201cFrom that point on, the path felt possible.\u201d<\/p>\n But Jauregui, like many others, also believes in the scientific power of serendipity.<\/p>\n A mid-1700s experiment with a kite led to the electrical grid that powers your refrigerator and, maybe, your car. The desire for scientists and others to share information during nuclear winter led to the Internet. The weight-loss drug Ozempic exists, in part, because of experiments that involved the venom of Gila monsters.<\/p>\n \u201cNot many things are invented out of plans,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Others agree.<\/p>\n