Science Highlights
These monthly highlights, selected by MagLab Director Greg Boebinger, represent the most promising and cutting-edge research underway in the lab’s seven user facilities.
One-way Optical Transparency at Telecommunications Wavelengths
Generally, light transmission is symmetrical - it's the same if you shine a light through a material forward or backwards. Using powerful pulsed fields, researchers revealed one-way transparency in a nickel-tellurium-oxygen based material showing that light flows one way across the telecom range – a finding that opens the door to exciting new photonics applications.
Vibronic Coupling in a Molecular Magnet
Using far-infared magnetospectroscopy in high magnetic fields, scientists probed coupled electronic and vibrational modes in a molecular magnet that are of interest in future classical and quantum information applications.
Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide from Peat Wetland Ecosystems
Understanding the organic composition of peat wetland soils can determine whether the carbon sources may be converted into carbon dioxide gas, work that could improve existing climate models and better predict the impact of increasing carbon dioxide to wetland ecosystems.
Addressing Supply Chain Challenges for Advanced Superconductors
The start of a sustainable business model for manufacturing advanced superconductors was established by a panel of industry leaders, university faculty, national lab leaders, and science facility project heads, including representatives from the MagLab.
Imaging Enzyme Active Site Chemistry Using Multiple Fields up to 35.2T
This new technique for mapping out atom placements in the active site of enzymes could unlock the potential for finding new therapeutics.
Crossover Between Coupling Regimes
Theory predicted that the transition between the superconducting and superfluid regimes should be continuous for electrons and holes in solid materials, but recent high magnetic field experiments performed by researchers from Columbia, Harvard and Brown Universities demonstrated the crossover between coupling regimes.
The Blood Proteoform Atlas: A reference map of proteoforms in human blood cells
A new Blood Proteoform Atlas maps 30,000 unique proteoforms as they appear in 21 different cell types found in human blood. The MagLab's 21 tesla FT-ICR mass spectrometer contributed nearly a third of the atlas' proteoforms.
Isolation of a Triplet Benzene Dianion
High-magnetic-field, high-frequency electron paramagnetic resonance demonstrates how coordination chemistry can be leveraged to stabilize a desired electronic/magnetic state in an organic molecule. In this experiment, the long-sought magnetic (triplet) ground state in a benzene ring is stabilized by a pair of metal ions above and below the six-carbon ring.
New Correlated Quasiparticles in an Atomically-Thin Semiconductor
A new class of correlated quasiparticle states discovered in a multi-valley semiconductor using optical absorption measurements in pulsed magnetic fields. This new type of multi-particle state results when excitons interact simultaneously with multiple electron reservoirs that are quantum-mechanically distinguishable by virtue of having different spin and/or valley quantum numbers.
Understanding How Fungi Build Their Cell Walls for Protection
Scientists have used high-field nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) to reveal how fungal pathogens use carbohydrates and proteins to build their cell walls (the protective layers outside of the cell). These findings will guide the development of novel antifungal drugs that target the cell wall molecules to combat life-threatening diseases caused by invasive fungal infections.
Magnetostriction in AlFe2B2 at 25 T Measured by X-Ray Diffraction
Using X-ray diffraction, scientists can now detect atoms themselves moving further apart or closer together in high magnetic fields, giving science a crystal clear view of nature.
Clues About Unconventional Superconductivity From High-Field Hall Data
In everyday life, phase transitions - like when water boils and turns into steam or freezes and becomes ice - are caused by changes in temperature. Here, very high magnetic fields are used to reveal a quantum phase transition not caused by temperature, but instead driven by quantum mechanics upon changing the concentration of electrons, work that could hold critical clues that explain high-temperature superconductivity.
Novel "hot-bronze" Nb3Sn for compact accelerators
A new "hot bronze" thin film growth recipe was developed to produce high quality superconducting Niobium-Tin (Nb3Sn) films that are easier to fabricate and that outperform existing technologies.
New quantum tricks in nitride materials
Gallium nitride (GaN) and Niobium nitride (NbN) are widely used in today's technologies: GaN is used to make blue LEDs and high-frequency transistors while NbN is used to make infrared light detectors. This experiment explores whether a nitride-based device may be relevant for quantum technologies of the future.
Sunlight converts plastics into diverse chemical mixtures
Sunlight can chemically transform plastics from consumer plastic bags into complex chemical mixtures that leach into the ocean. Understanding the impact of plastic pollution requires advanced analytical techniques that can identify transformed plastic molecules in water samples, and requires instrumentation only available at the Maglab.
Unusual high-field state discovered in mineral atacamite
Scientists at the Pulsed Field Facility recently found that applying an intense magnetic field to the mineral atacamite (a "frustrated" quantum magnet) yields unusual behavior associated with a novel state of matter known as quantum spin liquid.
Resilient Bi-2212 Round Wire
Researchers studied the mechanics of supercurrent flow in state-of-the-art Bi-2212 superconducting round wires and learned that the microstructure of the superconducting filaments is inherently resilient, work that could open the door to new opportunities to raise supercurrent capacity of Bi-2212 round wires.
Restoration of Breathing After Drug Overdose and Spinal Cord Injuries
Respiratory insufficiency is a leading cause of death due to drug overdose or spinal cord injuries. The diaphragm can be stimulated using temporal interference (TI) to restore ventilation with minimally invasive electrodes.
Linear-In Temperature Resistivity From Isotropic Planckian Scattering Rate
Electrons in metals behave like chaotic bumper cars, crashing into each other at every opportunity. While they may be reckless drivers, this result demonstrates that this chaos has a limit established by the laws of quantum mechanics. Using the 45T hybrid magnet and a crystal of high-temperature superconducting material, scientists were able to measure this boundary using high fields to bend electron trajectories to their will.
Advanced Microscopy for Better Nanostructural Insights in Bi-2212 Round Wires
Researchers working to push the high temperature superconducting material (Bi-2212) to the forefront of superconducting magnet technology have used novel characterization methods to understand the complex relationship between its processing and its superconducting properties, specifically its current carrying capabilities.
![(Left) 125Te spectral line and effective gamma with respect to magnetic field. Black circles are from the 36T Series Connected Hybrid while the pink diamonds are from the new HTS 32T magnet. (Right) Phase diagram for H//c highlighting the possible spin-nematic state. [PRB 94 064403 2016] Solid circles are from magnetostriction. Open circles from magnetostriction and thermal expansion. Open triangles from magnetization.](/media/k2/items/cache/c04d87aa8933a07fbb7fb4cbd401ad43_XS.jpg)
![Metabolism pathways of [2H7]glucose (green stars), with red dots marking the presence of 2H, and larger dots indicating two 2H atoms. Note that HDO (gold stars) can be produced at multiple steps in the glycolytic pathway.](/media/k2/items/cache/8712e19a798c2cfe1711a106c044b3a3_XS.jpg)
![Scientists studied the copper-based compound [Cu(pyrimidine)H2O4] SiF6 H2O. Repeating units of four copper ions (see above) create corkscrew-like chains with intriguing magnetic properties.](/media/k2/items/cache/27646697e277dff903d4ed00b18ff78b_XS.jpg)
![Representative high-field EPR data and structural details of the (PPh4)2[Co(SPh)4] molecule.](/media/k2/items/cache/1706b33fef7712ba31cca5e36abb2536_XS.jpg)
