RALEGH – Researchers at North Carolina State College have found a brand new distinct type of silicon known as Q-silicon which, amongst different attention-grabbing properties, is ferromagnetic at room temperature. The findings may result in advances in quantum computing, together with the creation of a spin qubit quantum pc that’s based mostly on controlling the spin of an electron.
“The invention of Q-silicon having strong room temperature ferromagnetism will open a brand new frontier in atomic-scale, spin-based units and practical integration with nanoelectronics,” mentioned Jay Narayan, the John C. Fan Household Distinguished Chair in Supplies Science and corresponding creator of a paper describing the work.
Ferromagnetism in supplies outdoors of transition metals and uncommon earths has excited scientists worldwide for a very long time. It’s because spin-polarized electrons can be utilized to course of and retailer data with atomic decision. Nevertheless, supplies with even numbers of electrons, equivalent to carbon and silicon, with out unpaired spins weren’t thought of significantly by way of bulk ferromagnetism. The dangling bonds in bulk carbon and silicon supplies often reconstruct and remove sources of unpaired electrons.
The NC State researchers confirmed that laser melting and quenching silicon can lead to the formation of Q-silicon. The complete course of is accomplished in lower than a fraction of a microsecond, or millionth of a second. Narayan pioneered using lasers to create new supplies with novel properties in work spanning greater than 4 a long time.
Apart from ferromagnetism, different Q-silicon properties of curiosity embody enhanced hardness and superconductivity, Narayan says.
“This discovery of Q-silicon stands to revolutionize trendy microelectronics by including new functionalities, equivalent to spintronics, or spin-based quantum computing,” Narayan mentioned. “Fashionable microelectronics is predicated upon the cost of an electron, making them comparatively sluggish with restricted mobility. By utilizing Q-silicon, we make use of the spin of the electron, making computer systems a lot sooner with negligible energy consumption.
“Briefly, Q-silicon supplies a perfect platform for integration of spintronics with microelectronics on a chip.”
The research seems in Supplies Analysis Letters. Roger Narayan, Distinguished Professor of Biomedical Engineering at NC State, co-authored the paper together with Siba Sahoo and Naveen Joshi, who’re graduate college students within the Division of Supplies Science and Engineering at NC State. Funding was offered by the Nationwide Science Basis underneath grants 1836767, 2029974 and 2016256. NC State has filed for a U.S. patent on the Q-silicon discovery.
(C) NCSU
