PARIS: Scientists said on Wednesday they had discovered a
new type of microscopic particle cluster that is found in solid materials but
strangely behaves like a liquid.
They called it the "dropleton". The new entity,
infinitely small and with a blink-and-you-miss-it lifespan, is a quasiparticle
— a combination of other, fundamental particles with unusual properties that
exist in solids.
"The dropleton is a new element — a stable building
block to build more complicated many-particle constructions in solids,"
study co-author Mackillo Kira of the Philipps-University Marburg in Germany
told AFP of the discovery.
"Our discovery adds a new element to the 'periodic
table' of existing quasiparticles in solids."
Each dropleton or "quantum droplet" is thought to
comprise about five electrons and five quantum "holes" — spaces in
solid matter where an electron once was, according to a paper published in the
journal Nature.
Stimulated by light, this combination of smaller particles
briefly condense into a "droplet" with characteristics of liquid
water, which includes that it can have ripples.
The dropleton exists for a mere 25 picoseconds (trillionths
of a second).
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