New form of matter discovered, dubbed 'Time Crystals'

Just in, scientists have developed now what could be called a fourth state of matter dubbed time crystals, although the name sounds like something out of a sci-fi flick, they are very real and may not have to do much with time travel.

The difference between a regular crystal and time crystal is plain enough as the former has a structure that repeats itself in space, though the lateral have structures that repeat in time.

According to a paper published in Physical Review Letter, a team of American researchers led by Norman Yao over from UC Berkeley, discussed in length the process of making time crystals and observing their properties.

Time crystals were first acquired a couple of months ago, when researchers from the University of Maryland created a chain of 10 ytterbium atoms and hit them with two lasers multiple times to keep them out of a stationery state thus equilibrium.

However, they discovered that the chain would settle down into a stable but repetitive patter every time, but the matter itself stayed out of equilibrium.

This marked the first instance of a study of a new kind of matter that could not stay put in motionless equilibrium like diamonds.

"Wouldn't it be super weird if you jiggled Jell-O and found that somehow it responded at a different period? But that is the essence of the time crystal. You have some periodic driver that has a period 'T', but the system somehow synchronizes so that you observe the system oscillating with a period that is larger than 'T'," said Yao, while giving a statement.

This experiment is not just an isolated incident, a different set up was held out at Harvard while being under the supervision Yao himself; [owing to good fortunes] the results were found to be consistent and submitted for publication looking for the first time into a new construct of matter.

"This is a new phase of matter, period, but it is also really cool because it is one of the first examples of non-equilibrium matter. For the last half-century, we have been exploring equilibrium matter, like metals and insulators. We are just now starting to explore a whole new landscape of non-equilibrium matter," Yao further added.

Time crystals were first proposed in 2012 by Nobel Laureate Frank Wilczek, and while scientists do not have a use for them yet, they might have the right properties to be useful in the time to come.