Weyl fermions finally discovered - ultra high mobility

[gary]

Article here - http://www.princeton.edu/main/news/archive/S43/64/59M11/index.xml?section=topstories



Article here -
http://physicsworld.com/cws/article/news/2015/jul/23/weyl-fermions-are-spotted-at-long-last


Article here -
http://www.sciencealert.com/scientists-have-finally-discovered-massless-particles-and-they-could-radically-speed-up-electronics

Discovery of a Weyl Fermion semimetal and topological Fermi arcs
Science Magazine abstract -
http://www.sciencemag.org/content/early/2015/07/15/science.aaa9297

[Eratosthenes]

It took over 85 years to find these mass less Weyl Fermions, and now they are thinking of constructing electronic devices in order to exploit the property of enhanced carrying charge?

Sounds expensive and impractical - maybe stick with the silicon chip for a couple of more years

[sn1987a]

It's not real until there's a YouTube video of the first Weyl Fermion gun:P

[gary]

Hi Peter.

From an electrical engineering perespective, it would not surprise me if
this technology makes its way into practical commercial devices within
the next thirteen years.

Even today, not all semiconductor devices are based on silicon because
silicon is not suitable for all applications.

I spent a decade working for an individual who in his earlier career
had done seminal work at Bell Labs in the development of what is
known as the High Electron Mobility Transistor (HEMT). (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-electron-mobility_transistor)Rather than
fabricated in silicon, the Bell Labs team developed a process called
Molecular Beam Epitaxy (MBE) (http://www.explainthatstuff.com/molecular-beam-epitaxy-introduction.html) to grow crystal lattices of Gallium Arsenide.

The HEMT was the world's fastest transisitor at the time,
capable of switching at many tens of GHz and as the acroymn suggests,
the key to their speed was their high electron mobility.

In the pursuit of higher electron mobility, three members of the Bell
Labs team working with MBE technology and crystals of Gallium Arsenide went
on to win the 1998 Nobel Prize for Physics.

The first HEMT was fabricated in late 1979. There was then an enormous
scramble to commercialize it.

So of what practical use came of it?

For a start, every single mobile phone now has one at their
heart to provide wireless communication. In may ways, a good part of
the fortunes of companies such as Apple, Samsung and Nokia have come
about because of their invention.

Radio astronomy receivers employ Gallium Arsenide HEMT's in their front
end receivers. It is what was used to communicate with the New Horizon's
spacecraft as it passed Pluto.

Satellites such as the Iridium communications satellites employ them
and they are ubquitous in RADAR's and microwave communications.

Every CD and DVD player is likely to use a laser diode fabricated in
a material such as Gallium Arsenide.

In short, a multi-billion dollar market for Gallium Arsenide devices arose.
From the invention of the HEMT in a lab in late 1979 to today where a
good fraction of the world's population carries one in their pocket.
Billions of them have been fabricated costing as little
as a few pennies apiece.

More recently, HEMTs are now being produced in Gallium Nitride.

By directing photons at a lattice of Tantalum Arsenide, a semimetal
rather than a semiconductor. the Princeton experimenters have
reported to have observed fermions moving with even high mobility than
electrons do in Gallium Arsenide and faster than they do in
exotic materials such as graphene.

There will be a scramble to commercialize this latest technology
and sizable amounts of venture capital will be available to try and do it.
There is a lot of money to be made.

And who knows, maybe a Nobel Prize for the discovers one day as well.

Best regards

Gary Kopff
Mt Kuring-Gai NSW

[Dave2042]

Have to agree with Gary.

When we put our minds to something it is extraordinary how fast stuff can be developed.

Consider flight. The Wright brothers made the first successful powered flight in 1903. We landed on the moon in 1969. That's less than an average lifetime.

Harnessing a new quasi-particle, which is already pretty well understood in theory, actually seems like a smallish problem to me.

[clive milne]

Can you get them in pink?

[RobF]

Fascinating posts Gary, and thanks for laying out some of the gallium arsenide history and implications in more detail. As many have predicted the time for new technologies to be discovered and harnessed seems to continue to shrink every decade. Then again, every decade seems to go a bit faster too as I get more gray hair :)