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New comment by abreidenbach in "I found ultra-pure quantum crystals in an abandoned mine in the Atacama desert"

abreidenbach — Wed, 20 May 2026 05:12:42 +0000

What metals normally associate with Zinc? Isn’t copper a pretty normal associate? There’s a lot of sulphates, silicon, silver, iron, etc in other minerals at this mine too

And yeah, it could be a lot of undiscovered places as a supergene mineral. The ones I found were right next to an industrial sized heap mine though. A lot of Chile’s more recent mining efforts target supergene minerals. That’s also why it was measured though…

New comment by abreidenbach in "I found ultra-pure quantum crystals in an abandoned mine in the Atacama desert"

abreidenbach — Wed, 20 May 2026 01:01:51 +0000

Yeah, I’m hoping to replicate the higher purity natural growth pathway in synthetics. The bottom line is higher purity means more zinc for us, and it’s a common enough ion in the earth’s crust. This mine in particular has a lot of Zn dense minerals, so there’s just a lot of zinc here. Most natural crystals might be less pure, but it grows so commonly in nature, it’s less surprising that some are more pure from that perspective

New comment by abreidenbach in "I found ultra-pure quantum crystals in an abandoned mine in the Atacama desert"

abreidenbach — Wed, 20 May 2026 00:56:30 +0000

You sure can! Small amounts have been confirmed in Arizona. I wouldn’t be surprised if deposits were quite extensive. Over 10 different confirmed locations worldwide. See the Mindat page on herbertsmithite if you’re curious

New comment by abreidenbach in "I found ultra-pure quantum crystals in an abandoned mine in the Atacama desert"

abreidenbach — Wed, 20 May 2026 00:45:38 +0000

Hi everyone! This is Dr. Aaron Breidenbach, the author of the article.

I’m very excited to see so much engagement here, and I just wanted to share a few updates and thoughts.

The first is that The Department of Energy recently recognized my thesis work as proving the quantum spin liquid state in Zn-Barlowite, which represents a major scientific breakthrough (https://www.linkedin.com/posts/aaron-breidenbach-65363b133_l...) . Certainly, there’s still plenty of doubters in the condensed matter physics community, but I’m quite proud of this recognition.

The second thing I’d like to mention is that I got approved to do both of the measurements I suggested in this article at National labs (Argonne and Oak Ridge). These are to investigate the consequences of the higher purity of the natural crystals. If successful, many of my colleagues have said that this would represent a major breakthrough in our understanding of these materials. I’m quite excited for this!!

Unfortunately, in spite of all this, I’m out of a job and broke . I’m hoping that this will change soon, but academia can be a very tough and political environment… I’ll leave it at this for now. If anyone knows an angel investor or person that writes drop science grants that might be willing to help support me while I run my experiments, please contact me at abreidenbach@alumni.stanford.edu .

Thank you for listening!

Dr Breidenbach