Discovering the Mysteries of Magnetism. Researcher from Gdańsk Tech Co-Author of a Publication in “Nature Physics”
An article co-authored by PhD Eng. Karolina Górnicka from the Faculty of Applied Physics and Mathematics at Gdańsk Tech was published in the journal Nature Physics (IF 18). This is another article co-authored by the young researcher published in a prestigious journal.
An article co-authored by PhD Eng. Karolina Górnicka from the Faculty of Applied Physics and Mathematics at Gdańsk Tech was published in the journal Nature Physics (IF 18). This is another article co-authored by the young researcher published in a prestigious journal.
The article was published under the title Weakly interacting spinons and tightly bound triplons in the frustrated quantum spin-Peierls chain.
– In our work, we studied CuGeO3, a low-dimensional quantum material that is one of the model systems in magnetism physics – says PhD Eng. Karolina Górnicka. – What makes it particularly interesting are the one-dimensional chains of copper ions and the spin-Peierls transition, below which dimerization occurs, that is, the characteristic pairing of spins in these chains.
To study this material, the researchers used inelastic neutron scattering – one of the most powerful tools for investigating magnetism in quantum materials.
– This method allows us to look inside the crystal and track the dynamics of spins and their related excitations. Thanks to measurements on single crystals, we could see how these excitations behave in different crystallographic directions and how they change with energy – explains PhD Eng. Górnicka. – In this way, we observed a clear change in their character, from weakly interacting spinons at higher energies to strongly bound states, namely triplons, at lower energies. Combining these results with advanced calculations then enabled us to demonstrate the crucial role played by magnetic frustration and dimerization in this phenomenon.
PhD Eng. Karolina Górnicka is an assistant professor at the Faculty of Applied Physics and Mathematics. She is currently completing the third year of her postdoctoral fellowship at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) in the United States, one of the largest government laboratories in the world, which played a key role in the Manhattan Project. In January 2027, the researcher will return to Gdańsk Tech, where she will continue her research at the Department of Quantum Materials in the Institute of Nanotechnology and Materials Engineering at the Faculty of Applied Physics and Mathematics of Gdańsk Tech.