Dan's Biz Bookshelf: 'Getting Naked: A Business Fable'
The Chemical Connection: Common Misconceptions in Wet Processing
It’s Only Common Sense: Selling to Engineers
'Weak' Materials Offer Strong Possibilities for Electronics
June 1, 2016 | University of Texas at DallasEstimated reading time: 3 minutes
“The fundamental computing scale is now very limited,” he said. “For many applications, like weather forecasting and information encoding and decoding, today’s computers are way too slow. However, quantum computers have been proposed that would use the principles of quantum physics to compute exponentially faster than today’s computers.
“Weak topological insulators could make quantum computing feasible.”
As a theorist, Zhang used old-fashioned pencil and paper to construct the basis of his theory about the bismuth compounds. His postdoctoral researcher Dr. Cheng-Cheng Liu, the study’s lead author and now an assistant professor at Beijing Institute of Technology, then crunched specific numbers using high-speed supercomputers at the Texas Advanced Computing Center based at UT Austin.
Zhang’s UT Dallas colleague, Dr. Bing Lv, assistant professor of physics, has made samples of bismuth iodide.
“The next step will be to characterize the material to explore the unique properties that a weak topological insulator can offer to fundamental physics and to our everyday lives,” Zhang said.
In addition to Zhang and Liu, other authors of the study are Dr. Jin-Jian Zhou at California Institute of Technology and Yugui Yao at Beijing Institute of Technology.
The work at UT Dallas was primarily supported by University startup funds and the National Science Foundation through the Aspen Center for Physics and Kavli Institute for Theoretical Physics.
Page 2 of 2Share on:
Suggested Items
New Database of Materials Accelerates Electronics Innovation
05/02/2025 | ACN NewswireIn a collaboration between Murata Manufacturing Co., Ltd., and the National Institute for Materials Science (NIMS), researchers have built a comprehensive new database of dielectric material properties curated from thousands of scientific papers.
DuPont Announces Additional Leaders and Company Name for the Intended Spin-Off of the Electronics Business
04/29/2025 | PRNewswireDuPont announced Qnity Electronics, Inc. as the name of the planned independent Electronics public company that will be created through the intended spin-off of its Electronics business.
2024 Global Semiconductor Materials Market Posts $67.5 Billion in Revenue
04/29/2025 | SEMIGlobal semiconductor materials market revenue increased 3.8% to $67.5 billion in 2024, SEMI, the global industry association representing the electronics design and manufacturing supply chain, reported in its Materials Market Data Subscription (MMDS).
New RF Materials Offer Options for RF Designers
04/29/2025 | Andy Shaughnessy, Design007 MagazineThe RF materials arena has changed quite a bit in the past decade. The newest thermoset laminates boast performance numbers that are almost competitive with PTFE, but without the manufacturability challenges. At IPC APEX EXPO this year, I spoke with Brent Mayfield, business development manager at AGC Multi Material America. Brent walked through some recent innovations in RF materials, advances in resin systems, and the many design trade-offs for RF engineers to consider for each material set.
Discovery Opens Doors for Cheaper and Quicker Battery Manufacturing
04/23/2025 | PNNLThe discovery centers on sublimation, a commonly known process whereby under the right conditions, a solid turns directly into a vapor. Sublimation is what creates the tail of a comet as it flies by the sun. As the comet’s icy shell heats up, the ice instantly becomes vapor, instead of first melting into liquid water.