Poznań scientists create world’s first video of space-time crystal
Poznań scientists have co-created the world’s first video of a space-time crystal as part of a collaboration with researchers from Germany.
The symmetry of matter in time was first mooted in 2012 by American theoretical physicist Frank Wilczek, who won the Nobel Prize in physics. Their actual existence was not confirmed until 2017, following a search by scientists for materials in which they can be observed.
The structures were just a few nanometres big, though, and only formed as extremely cold temperatures, below minus 250 degrees Celsius.
Now scientists from the Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems in Stuttgart, Germany, the Adam Mickiewicz University and the Polish Academy of Sciences in Poznań, Poland, has taken research on the space-time crystals a step further with their imaging of them.
Using the scanning transmission X-ray microscope Maxymus at Bessy II at the Helmholtz Zentrum Berlin, the team was able to film the recurring periodic magnetisation structure in a crystal.
Unlike in earlier research by other scientists, these space-time crystals were a few micro-metres in size and observed at room temperature.
Unlike in earlier research by other scientists, these space-time crystals were a few micro-metres in size and observed at room temperature.
Paweł Gruszecki, a scientist at the Faculty of Physics of the Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań, said: "We were able to show that such space-time crystals are much more robust and widespread than first thought.
"Our crystal condenses at room temperature and particles can interact with it – unlike in an isolated system. Moreover, it has reached a size that could be used to do something with this magnonic space-time crystal. This may result in many potential applications.”
