Just a few weeks ago, a new quasiparticle, known as the ‘dropleton’, was discovered. Scientists in the States and Germany discovered this new liquid-like particle when they were studying excitons and the effects that lasers have on semiconductor elements. Exciton, like dropleton, is another quasiparticle, and is a pair of an electron and a hole bound together by electrostatic forces. (As a sidenote, a quasiparticle is a collective excitation within a material that behaves like a fundamental particle.)

Researchers created this new quantum particle by firing high-speed lasers at gallium-arsenide quantum wells. These dropleton have a lifetime of 25 picoseconds (one-trillionth of a second), long enough to be scientifically studied properly. These quantum droplets are created when the firing lasers excite electrons to form a number of excitions which combine to form one whole quantum droplet system, the dropleton. These quasiparticles are stabilized by Pauli’s Exclusion Principle and have properties relate-able to those of liquids.

Liquid-like dropletons are supposed to reveal invaluable information on how electrons react to different stimuli in solids and eventually lead to a better understanding of the solid state, and better electronic devices.

For more detailed information, do check out the original article, which was published in Nature 506,471–475 (27 February 2014).