For a number of many years, a central puzzle in quantum physics has remained unsolved: Might electrons behave like an ideal, frictionless fluid with electrical properties described by a common quantum quantity? This distinctive property of electrons has been extraordinarily tough to detect in any materials up to now due to the presence of atomic defects, impurities, and imperfections within the materials.
Researchers on the Division of Physics, Indian Institute of Science (IISc), together with collaborators from the Nationwide Institute for Supplies Science, Japan, have now lastly detected this quantum fluid of electrons in graphene – a fabric consisting of a single sheet of pure carbon atoms. The outcomes, revealed in Nature Physics, open a brand new window into the quantum realm and set up graphene as a singular tabletop laboratory for exploring hitherto unseen quantum phenomena.
“It’s wonderful that there’s a lot to do on only a single layer of graphene even after 20 years of discovery,” says Arindam Ghosh, Professor on the Division of Physics, IISc, and one of many corresponding authors of the research.
