Over the last decade, researchers have developed two-dimensional materials with fascinating quantum effects that could be harnessed for next-generation technologies.

Such materials have shown superconductivity—conducting electricity without energy loss—and charge orders, where electrons arrange in frozen patterns rather than moving freely in the material.

At the University of Chicago Pritzker School of Molecular Engineering (UChicago PME), a research team discovered that one such material, Fe5GeTe2, exhibits a charge-ordered state in which electrons move collectively and unusually slowly while remaining quantum coherent.

The research, published in Science Advances and conducted in the lab of assistant professor Shuolong Yang, rewrites current knowledge of the material and could unlock new technological applications.

"This is a fundamental discovery that deviates from theoretical predictions," Yang said. "We now have to go back and think about the magnetic interactions of this material from scratch, but it also leads to new possibilities in using this material for new kinds of memory devices."

A many-body phenomenon
Discovered seven years ago, Fe5GeTe2 is part of a class of materials known as van der Waals magnets. Their atomically thin layers could enable new kinds of memory technologies, with advantages over those based on conventional magnetic materials.