The symbol "Seal of King Solomon", which the Israelites later borrowed, making their own, as it turned out, is a scheme with which you can create a metal crystal with unique electrical and quantum properties.
"The seal of King Solomon" is an ancient symbol, an emblem in the form of a six-pointed star, in which two identical equilateral triangles are superimposed on each other, forming a structure of six identical angles attached to the sides of a regular hexagon.
There are various versions of the origin of the name of the symbol, from linking it with the legend about the shape of the shields of the soldiers of King David to raising it to the name of the false messiah David Alroy or the Talmudic phrase denoting the God of Israel. Another version of it is known as the "Seal of King Solomon."
Since the 19th century, the "Seal of King Solomon" has been called the Star of David and is considered a Jewish symbol. The Star of David is depicted on the flag of the State of Israel and is one of its main symbols. Six-pointed stars are also found in the symbols of other states and towns.
An article describing the new discovery, published in the journal Nature. True, it does not indicate a direct connection precisely with the symbol of the "seal of King Solomon" or with the "Star of David", but a different interpretation of where the scientists got the idea for creating such a crystal.
According to American scientists, the structure of the crystal repeats the classic Japanese ornament for weaving baskets - kagome. There are only 11 ways to evenly fill a plane with a mosaic of regular polygons.
One of them, the tri-hexagonal mosaic, is traditionally used in the Japanese basket weaving technique, kagome. A similar structure (alternation of regular triangles and hexagons) was found in the structure of some minerals, and the term "kagome lattice" entered physics. Scientists at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Harvard University and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory have replicated the kagome lattice at the molecular level and created a metal with unique quantum properties.
Researchers "intertwined" layers of iron and tin atoms together like bamboo rods in Japanese baskets. By passing an electric current through such a structure, the scientists found that the triangular sections of the lattice were strangely influencing the flowing electrons. Instead of passing directly through the lattice, the electrons were deflected or even reversed. Scientists compare the resulting quantum effect with the Hall effect, in which electrons in a two-dimensional conducting plate begin to move along cyclic paths along a conductor without losing energy.
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Electrons, passing through such a crystal, experience, according to the authors, a purely quantum-mechanical effect of the crystal lattice itself. The presence of iron atoms with a strong magnetic field determines the directional property of the lattice (the dependence of the electromagnetic properties on the direction), and heavier tin atoms create a strong electric field around them. As a result, the electric current interacts with the field of tin atoms not as electric, but as magnetic and deviates from the original direction without changing the energy.
This effect, according to scientists, will help create new superconducting materials. In future research, the authors hope to establish other structures using the kagome lattice. Such materials can be used in electronic devices with zero energy losses and as constituent elements of a quantum computer.
