It’s Only Common Sense: Great Stories of Loving Your Customers
American Made Advocacy: Changing Leadership and Three Years of Advocacy in D.C.
Marcy’s Musings: All Things Material Surprising Discovery of a New Particle that Could be Used in Electronics
November 30, 2015 | ETH ZurichEstimated reading time: 3 minutes
Studying peculiar properties of a long known metallic material researchers have chanced upon a new particle. It is related to the so-called Weyl fermions that the mathematician Hermann Weyl predicted almost ninety years ago. Weyl had overlooked the particle, which could have interesting applications in electronics.
When ETH professor Hermann Weyl arrived for his one-year tenure as guest professor at Princeton in the autumn of 1928, the quantum physicist Paul Dirac had just published his celebrated formula for the electron. That formula described the properties of so-called fermions, or quantum particles with half-integer spin, and its predictions - among them the existence of anti-matter – ushered in the era of modern particle physics. Weyl realized that, in principle, Dirac’s equation also allowed solutions for particles without mass. In 1929 he published a paper in which he described those massless particles with half-integer spin. They would later be called “Weyl fermions”.
Physicists at the ETH, together with researchers at Princeton University and at the Chinese Academy of Sciences, have now found a thus far unknown particle that their illustrious forebear had overlooked in his calculations and that had remained undetected for almost ninety years thereafter. They named it “type-2 Weyl fermion”.
Search for New Material Properties
The researchers hit upon the new kind of particle when trying to understand strange physical properties of the metal tungsten ditelluride (WTe2). “We were hoping to find especially so-called ‘topological’ properties that make certain quantum states more resistant to perturbations in this metal material”, explains Alexey Soluyanov, a researcher in the Computational Physics group at ETH Zurich.
In order to simulate the physical properties of the metal crystals the researchers ran calculations for 200,000 hours on supercomputers at the Swiss National Supercomputing Centre CSCS and at the Chinese Academy of Sciences. It required weeks of detailed derivations and calculations before the researchers came to the conclusion that they must have discovered something totally new: inside the tungsten ditelluride crystal there had to exist a thus far unknown type of fermion, the type-2 Weyl fermion.
Page 1 of 2
Share on:
Suggested Items
It’s Only Common Sense: ‘Mad Men’s’ Don Draper on Business and Marketing
06/17/2024 | Dan Beaulieu -- Column: It's Only Common SenseI’ve always said I’m weary of people who claim they don’t eat meat or watch TV. I’m also amazed by what we can learn from TV, especially good shows like the AMC original program “Mad Men.” This series presented a virtual treasure trove of sayings, ideas, tactics, and strategies. I am not ashamed to admit that I often watched this show with pen and notebook in hand, ready to steal some of the literal pearls of wisdom that fell out of Don Draper’s mouth. If you don’t believe me, go back to season one and watch the episode titled “Carousel.” It still blows me away.
A Memorial Day Holiday Notice
05/27/2024 | Marcy LaRont, PCB007 MagazineToday is Memorial Day, a federal holiday in the United States. As we celebrate Memorial Day, we are reminded of the sacrifice of American soldiers—from the Revolutionary War to Vietnam, from Korea to the War on Terror.
It’s Only Common Sense: Would You Join Your Own Company?
05/06/2024 | Dan Beaulieu -- Column: It's Only Common SenseIn the past few years, I have heard many company runners complaining about their workforce. They tell me that the government is paying people too much money not to work, too many young people are not interested in working every day, and there is just not the work ethic there once was when they were young.
New Book on Low-temperature Soldering Now Available
04/17/2024 | I-Connect007I-Connect007 is pleased to announce that The Printed Circuit Assembler’s Guide to… Low-temperature Soldering, Vol. 2, by subject matter experts at MacDermid Alpha Electronics Solutions, is now available for download.
Thinking Inside the Box for a Change
04/10/2024 | I-Connect007 Editorial TeamIn this interview, Joe O’Neil discusses the growing importance of box build from an EMS provider perspective. Supply chain disruptions and the desire to offer more value to customers have fueled interest in box build. Additionally, mass customization is emerging as a trend, allowing for personalized product variations. While Tier 1 companies have mastered this approach, Tier 2 and 3 players hold significant opportunities in the industrial space.