Sau Research Group

JQI researchers identified a set of promising ingredients for making time crystals. With those ingredients in mind, they developed a new theoretical framework that they hope will put time crystals research on an equal footing with the study of traditional phases of matter.

One of the biggest achievements of quantum physics was recasting our vision of the atom. Out was the early 1900s model of a solar system in miniature. Instead, quantum physics showed that electrons meander around the nucleus in clouds that look like tiny balloons. These balloons are known as atomic orbitals, and they come in all sorts of different shapes—perfectly round, two-lobed, clover-leaf-shaped. That’s all well and good for individual atoms, but when atoms come together to form something solid—like a chunk of metal, say—the outermost electrons in the atoms link arms and lose sight of the nucleus they came from, forming many oversized balloons that span the whole chunk of metal. Now, researchers have produced the first experimental evidence that one metal—and likely others in its class—have electrons that manage to preserve a more interesting, multi-lobed structure as they move around in a solid.

JQI Fellow Jay Sau has been appointed the newest UMD Co-Director of JQI. He assumed the role on January 1, 2022.

In this episode of Relatively Certain, Dina Genkina sits down with JQI Fellow Jay Sau, an associate professor of physics at UMD, and Johnpierre Paglione, a professor of physics at UMD and the director of the Quantum Materials Center.