This article has been reviewed according to Science X's editorial process and policies. Editors have highlighted the following attributes while ensuring the content's credibility: Theoretical physicists at Emory University have discovered a way to use light to detect the "spectral fingerprints" of anyons—exotic quasiparticles that emerge from the collective behavior of many electrons. Their findings are published in Physical Review Letters.
The work offers a new tool for the study of anyons, which hold potential as fundamental building blocks for quantum computing. "Using a particular frequency of light, we've developed a sensor that can pinpoint the location of an anyon in a material," says Luiz Santos, professor of physics at Emory University and senior author of the study. "The dream goal is the ability to manipulate anyons to achieve topological quantum computation," says Tianhong Lu, first author of the paper and an Emory Ph.D. candidate in physics.
"Our theoretical work takes another step in that direction." For nearly 100 years, it was believed that every electrical charge in the universe, whether on Earth or in the next galaxy, has the same magnitude of charge: Protons have a full positive electrical charge, for example, while electrons have a full negative electrical charge. "People thought that all charge excitations had to carry multiples of magnitude—in other words, the charges could not be split into fractional charges," Santos explains. During the 1980s, however, scientists discovered that—in two-dimensional systems—electron charges can fractionalize into quasiparticles that defy the standard rules of particles.
These newly discovered phenomena were dubbed "anyons" for their "anything goes" behavior. "When we can literally shed light on how things work at a fundamental level, that makes me quite happy," says Santos, Emory professor of physics. One of the more interesting potential applications for anyons is to create qubits, or the bits of information needed for quantum computing.
A major challenge in developing quantum computing is that even the slightest disturbances—from the movement of air molecules or radiation from the sun—cause havoc at such a tiny scale. "Anyons can hide themselves and avoid being perturbed by many environmental disturbances," Santos says. "That makes them more stable than typical quantum materials." However, topological quantum computation—a system that relies on a particular class of anyons—remains in the theoretical realm.
Studying anyons to find ways to harness their power is challenging because they don't exist as fundamental, isolated particles. Instead, they emerge as collective excitations of electrons. "It's quantum choreography," Santos says.
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