Graphene defies 200-year-old physics law, reveals quantum secrets

Fascinating breakthrough in quantum materials! Researchers have shown that ultraclean graphene can defy the 200-year-old Wiedemann–Franz law, with electrons behaving as a Dirac fluid — flowing collectively like a near-perfect liquid. This not only challenges classical physics but also opens doors to: •Probing black-hole-like physics in the lab •Exploring quantum entanglement & thermal transport • Enabling next-gen quantum sensors and ultra-sensitive electronics Graphene once again proves why it’s one of the most extraordinary materials of our time #Graphene #QuantumPhysics #MaterialsScience #Innovation

If there’s one law of physics that seems easy to grasp, it’s the second law of thermodynamics: Heat flows spontaneously from hotter bodies to colder ones. But now, gently and almost casually, Alexssandre de Oliveira Jr. has just shown me I didn’t truly understand it at all. Take this hot cup of coffee and this cold jug of milk, the Brazilian physicist said as we sat in a café in Copenhagen. Bring them into contact and, sure enough, heat will flow from the hot object to the cold one, just as the German scientist Rudolf Clausius first stated formally in 1850. However, in some cases, de Oliveira explained, physicists have learned that the laws of quantum mechanics can drive heat flow the opposite way: from cold to hot. Physicists began to appreciate the subtlety of this situation more than two decades ago and have been exploring the quantum mechanical version of the second law ever since. Now, de Oliveira, a postdoctoral researcher at the Technical University of Denmark, and colleagues have shown (opens a new tab) that the kind of “anomalous heat flow” that’s enabled at the quantum scale could have a convenient and ingenious use. It can serve, they say, as an easy method for detecting “quantumness” — sensing, for instance, that an object is in a quantum “superposition” of multiple possible observable states, or that two such objects are entangled, with states that are interdependent — without destroying those delicate quantum phenomena. Such a diagnostic tool could be used to ensure that a quantum computer is truly using quantum resources to perform calculations. It might even help to sense quantum aspects of the force of gravity, one of the stretch goals of modern physics. All that’s needed, the researchers say, is to connect a quantum system to a second system that can store information about it, and to a heat sink: a body that’s able to absorb a lot of energy. With this setup, you can boost the transfer of heat to the heat sink, exceeding what would be permitted classically. Simply by measuring how hot the sink is, you could then detect the presence of superposition or entanglement in the quantum system. Practical benefits aside, the research demonstrates a new aspect of a deep truth about thermodynamics: How heat and energy can be transformed and moved in physical systems is intimately bound up with information — what is or can be known about those systems. In this case, we “pay for” the anomalous heat flow by sacrificing stored information about the quantum system. Read more here —> https://lnkd.in/gE4avS3i #quantum #thermodynamics #measurement #superposition #entanglement #detection #knowledge

When electrons in graphene start flowing like a liquid, the future of quantum computing might change. Physicists in India just observed something long thought impossible: electrons in ultraclean graphene breaking the Wiedemann–Franz law. At a special state called the Dirac point, electrons stop behaving like independent particles and begin moving collectively — like a near-perfect fluid. Why does this matter? Because the Dirac fluid could unlock breakthroughs that quantum computing desperately needs: • Quantum coherence: collective electron motion may protect fragile quantum states. • Exotic quasiparticles: new candidates for topological quantum computation. • Thermal control: decoupling heat and charge could help keep qubits ultra-stable. • Quantum simulation: a tabletop way to study black-hole-like physics and extreme quantum matter. Graphene has already been called a “wonder material.” But this discovery shows it might also be a quantum playground — one that could accelerate our journey to scalable quantum technologies. The big takeaway: Sometimes the path to quantum computing doesn’t come from building better qubits directly, but from discovering exotic phases of matter that rewrite the rules of physics.

Materials science and engineering researchers at Penn State developed a new tool for improving a technique used for assessing the atomic structure of materials: nonlinear optical microscopy. This new computational framework can interpret the nonlinear optical microscopy images to characterize the material in microscopic detail. The technique interprets changes in the color of intense laser light. Venkatraman Gopalan, professor of materials science and engineering at Penn State, says those changes can tell us a lot about the characterization of a material, including ones that fail. “Atoms vibrate differently and make music; they dance to different beats, and light is like music. From electrons to nuclei to clusters of atoms to their spins, they all sort of dance at different frequencies. It's almost like an opera,” he said.

Coulomb’s Law Meets Wave Mechanics One of the most fascinating intersections in modern materials science lies in how Coulomb’s law—traditionally viewed as a static electrostatic principle—finds exact correspondence within wave-form mechanics. In graphene and other 2D materials, electronic interactions don’t behave as simple point-charge forces. Instead, they propagate as wave-like fields across the carbon lattice, forming standing-wave confinement patterns that redefine how we understand charge density and field distribution. This “retro-static” behavior reveals a bridge between classical electrostatics and quantum dynamics: the apparent static field we measure is actually the sum of interfering wave components within the electron system itself. The result is a new way to think about electron confinement, plasmon resonance, and charge transport—not as isolated phenomena, but as unified aspects of field-wave behavior. Exploring this relationship continues to inspire advances in graphene electronics, quantum devices, and nanoscale field control, where physics and design merge at the level of pure structure.

What is a TEM? Transmission Electron Microscope (TEM) is a powerful tool and technique that enables scientists and engineers to explore materials at the atomic and nanoscale levels. In a TEM, a beam of electrons passes through a thin sample, interacts with the atoms in the material, and creates an image, diffraction pattern and many other signals. These signals when analyzed provide a wealth of information about the crystal structure, defects, grain boundaries, and other important material properties at extremely small (nanometer/atomic level) length scales. TEM can also reveal the elements present in the materials. It is a versatile tool that is used in a wide range of fields, from materials science to biology and environmental science. TEM has revolutionized the scientific field and has paved the way for new discoveries and innovations in a wide range of fields, and it continues to be an essential technique for exploring the world around us.

I am excited to share the publication of our Special Issue, "Disordered Materials at the Atomic Scale" in Journal of Applied Physics, which I have had the privilege to lead as a guest editor with Prof. Matteo Baggioli! Disordered materials continue to challenge our microscopic understanding of their physical behavior, often defying the traditional structure–property paradigm. For example, viscosity of a glass-forming liquid can vary by more than 15 orders of magnitude near the glass transition, while its structure changes only subtly. This Special Issue, comprising around 30 articles, represents a collective effort to uncover the fundamental mechanisms governing disordered systems at the atomic scale. As shown in the figure below, the collection spans a broad range of topics: 🔹 Atomic structure and local order 🔹 Mechanical response and deformation 🔹 Excitations and transport phenomena 🔹 Synthesis strategies and emerging applications A huge thank-you to all the authors, reviewers, editors, and journal staff who made this possible! 👉 Check out the full issue here: https://lnkd.in/g79hyjSF

So as a physicist I read this and thought, "Oh neat, graphene can conduct heat and electricity like a metal but also be switched to conduct like a Dirac fluid." Meanwhile the comments on this posts show that many folks without a physics background think that something like the Wiedemann-Franz law is absolutely fundamental, and physics as we know it has been upended by these findings. We really need better STEM education in high school.

A paper in Science (26 Feb 1988) led to the Nobel Prize to three researchers over 37 years later now. John Clarke of the University of California Berkeley, Michel Devoret of Yale University and UC Santa Barbara, and John Martinis of UC Santa Barbara, were jointly awarded the prize "for the discovery of macroscopic quantum mechanical tunnelling and energy quantisation in an electric circuit", the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences announced today Single particles will sometimes pass through a barrier; physicists call this   well-known phenomenon in quantum mechanics as tunneling  In a series of elegant experiments using electrical circuits made of superconductors, the researchers showed that groups of electrons, behaving as if they were a single quantum mechanical entity, were able to tunnel across an insulating barrier and produce a voltage. The system they developed finally was big enough to be held in the hand.   “This brings quantum physics from the subatomic world onto a chip”, Göran Johansson, professor in applied and theoretical quantum physics and member of the Nobel Committee for Physics 2025 said in an interview holding a cute circuit board in his hand! The researchers also showed that the circuit absorbed and emitted discrete packets of energy—the "quanta" that give quantum mechanics its name. “None of this work would have happened without the two of them”, in his first reactions, the new Nobel laureate John Clarke, 83, gracefully praised his co-laureates John Martinis and Michel Devoret, whom he worked together with in a lab in Berkeley, California, some 40 years ago. “There is no advanced technology used today that does not rely on quantum mechanics and quantum physics … mobile phones, computers, cameras, and the fiber optic cables that connect our world,” Olle Eriksson, chair of the Nobel Committee for Physics, said.

The National Science Foundation (NSF) has awarded a University of Maryland-led research team a four-year, $2 million grant to explore a bold new frontier in quantum materials science. The mission of the team is to harness “configurational entropy”—the mixing of multiple elements in a single crystal structure. This could lead to the discovery and control new forms of magnetism, superconductivity and topological states of matter. “Traditionally, materials scientists try to eliminate disorder when making new compounds,” said Johnpierre Paglione, University of Maryland – College of Computer, Mathematical, and Natural Sciences physics professor and director of the Maryland Quantum Materials Center, who is leading the project. “We’re flipping that idea around—embracing disorder as a way to stabilize entirely new phases of matter.” High-entropy materials, first discovered in metallic alloys, contain five or more elements randomly distributed across a lattice site. This chemical “chaos” can give rise to surprising stability and novel properties. The UMD-UBC team aims to extend this concept into the quantum realm, coining a new class of materials that it’s labeled “high-entropy quantum.” https://lnkd.in/ee7a3WC2