It was predicted five decades ago that Supersolidity – a state of Matter could exist. Supersolidity is a state of matter where Superfluidity and Crystalline order coexist. A supersolid is a counterintuitive phase of matter that combines the global phase coherence of a superfluid with a crystal-like self-modulation in space.
Experiments
In the year 2017, two teams of Physicists from MIT and ETH Zurich independently turned a Bose-Einstein Condensate into a Supersolid. In 2019, Physicists at University of Innsbruck experimentally realized the Supersolid state. They used quantum gases of highly magnetic Lanthanide atoms.
Researchers in Quantum Optics suggest the following. “Quantum effects can cause a very cold gas of atoms to spontaneously develop both crystalline order and particle flow. That is something like a solid crystal and like a superfluid quantum liquid, a fluid flowing without friction”.
A theoretical Physicist at the University of Geneva says “A Dipolar Supersolid can be imagined as a chain of Quantum Droplets which communicate with each other via a superfluid background bath”.
Source of information:
Article published at Phys.Org on 5th Jan 2021. Read more about Supersolidity here
