Canadian physicists stumble upon new state of matter in a 'transistor'

Tony Austin
Tuesday, 28 October 2008 08:30

Opinion and Analysis

McGill University researchers say they have discovered a previously unknown state of matter that might have a momentous impact on creation of new electronic devices.

The physicists call the new state of matter "a quasi-three-dimensional electron crystal, in a material very much alike those used in the fabrication of modern transistors."

Their results were published in the journal Nature Physics (Wigner crystallization in a quasi-three-dimensional electronic system - 05 October 2008).

This discovery eventually could have momentous implications for the development of new electronic devices, they say.

Currently, the number of transistors that can be inexpensively crammed onto a single computer chip increases exponentially, doubling approximately every two years, a trend known as Moore’s Law.

But there are limits. As chips get smaller and smaller, scientists expect that the bizarre laws and behaviours of quantum physics will take over, making ever-smaller chips impossible.

The new discovery, and other similar efforts, could help the electronics industry once traditional manufacturing techniques approach these quantum limits over the next decade or so, the researchers said.

Working with one of the purest semiconductor materials ever made, they discovered the quasi-three-dimensional electron crystal in a device cooled at ultra-low temperatures "roughly 100 times colder than intergalactic space." The material was then exposed to the most powerful continuous magnetic fields generated on Earth.

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