New state of matter? : Kind of a tall claim, but that's what researchers at Japan's Tohoku University are stating. They have created what's called a Jahn-Teller metal by inserting Rubidium into Buckyballs. What they have apparently done is by combining the two, the resultant complex crystalline structure seems to conduct, insulate, and magnetize while acting like a metal. Will have to see more papers before one is fully convinced of this...
Game changer for materials science : Superconducting lattices of fullerides – C60 plus three alkali-metal atoms – have been studied for more than two decades, and provide an interesting test bed. This is because the distance between fulleride molecules – and hence the electronic properties of the material – can be adjusted by applying pressure to the material or doping it with different kinds of atoms.
Strange behavior : The surprising thing about this metal–insulator transition is that it involves an intermediate state never seen before. The researchers have dubbed this a "Jahn–Teller metal" because when the material is studied using infrared spectroscopy, the fulleride molecules clearly show rugby-ball distortions, which were only known to occur in insulators. However, nuclear magnetic resonance measurements clearly show that electrons are able to "hop" from one molecule to the next – which is the signature of a conducting metal. "An interesting question is how the material can have both Jahn–Teller distortions and be a metal?" says Matthew Rosseinsky of the University of Liverpool, UK, who was involved in the research.
References and links
Paper link: http://advances.sciencemag.org/content/1/3/e1500059
http://physicsworld.com/cws/article/news/2015/may/06/new-state-of-matter-found-in-crystal-made-from-buckyballs
http://www.popularmechanics.com/science/energy/a15501/jahn-teller-metal-new-state-matter/
http://nanotechweb.org/cws/article/tech/61131
Game changer for materials science : Superconducting lattices of fullerides – C60 plus three alkali-metal atoms – have been studied for more than two decades, and provide an interesting test bed. This is because the distance between fulleride molecules – and hence the electronic properties of the material – can be adjusted by applying pressure to the material or doping it with different kinds of atoms.
Strange behavior : The surprising thing about this metal–insulator transition is that it involves an intermediate state never seen before. The researchers have dubbed this a "Jahn–Teller metal" because when the material is studied using infrared spectroscopy, the fulleride molecules clearly show rugby-ball distortions, which were only known to occur in insulators. However, nuclear magnetic resonance measurements clearly show that electrons are able to "hop" from one molecule to the next – which is the signature of a conducting metal. "An interesting question is how the material can have both Jahn–Teller distortions and be a metal?" says Matthew Rosseinsky of the University of Liverpool, UK, who was involved in the research.
References and links
Paper link: http://advances.sciencemag.org/content/1/3/e1500059
http://physicsworld.com/cws/article/news/2015/may/06/new-state-of-matter-found-in-crystal-made-from-buckyballs
http://www.popularmechanics.com/science/energy/a15501/jahn-teller-metal-new-state-matter/
http://nanotechweb.org/cws/article/tech/61131
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