Newly-discovered electrons could boost computer performance

Posted by Louise Tate

US scientists say that newly-found 'superhero' electrons could be used to create faster connections in nanoscale computing devices, IT outsourcing customers may be interested to hear.

The electrons, found on the surface of certain metals, are able to break through surface imperfections, dodge around them, or climb over them.

And experts at Princeton University believe they could also boost conductivity in computing bottlenecks.

"Material imperfections just cannot trap these surface electrons," noted Princeton physics professor Ali Yazdani.

"This demonstration suggests that surface conduction in these compounds may be useful for high-current transmission even in the presence of atomic scale irregularities - an electronic feature sought to efficiently interconnect nanoscale devices."

The discovery could lead to the electrons being used to improve the performance of integrated circuits that process information via the transition of electrons between devices.

Dr Jay Narayan, of the North Carolina State University, recently developed a computer chip capable of storing over one billion pages of data using nanodots - tiny magnetic dots that are assigned a binary value.