Advances in modern electronics has demanded the requisite hardware, transistors, to be smaller in each new iteration. Recent progress in nanotechnology has reduced the size of silicon transistors down to the order of 10 nanometers.
However, for such small transistors, other physical effects set in, which limit their functionality. For example, the power consumption and heat production in these devices is creating significant problems for device design.
Therefore, novel quantum materials and device concepts are required to develop a new generation of energy-saving information technology.
The recent discoveries of topological materials — a new class of relativistic quantum materials — hold great promise for use in energy saving electronics.
This new magnet displays electronic charge carriers that have almost no mass. The magnetism brings with it an important symmetry breaking property – time reversal symmetry, or TRS, breaking where the ability to run time backward would no longer return the system back to its starting conditions.
The combination of relativistic electron behavior, which is the cause of much reduced charge carrier mass, and TRS breaking has been predicted to cause even more unusual behavior, the much sought after magnetic Weyl semimetal phase.
The material discovered by this collaboration is thought to be an excellent one to investigate for evidence of the Weyl phase and to uncover its consequences.
Source: http://www.lsu.edu/mediacenter/news/2017/07/28physastro_ditusa_naturematls.php
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