excitons tagged posts

Scientists identify a long-sought magnetic state predicted nearly 60 years ago. Scientists at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Brookhaven National Laboratory have discovered a long-predicted magnetic state of matter called an “antiferromagnetic excitonic insulator.”

“Broadly speaking, this is a novel type of magnet,” said Brookhaven Lab physicist Mark Dean, senior author on a paper describing the research just published in Nature Communications. “Since magnetic materials lie at the heart of much of the technology around us, new types of magnets are both fundamentally fascinating and promising for future applications.”

The new magnetic state involves strong magnetic attraction between electrons in a layered material that make the electrons want to arrange their magnetic moments, o...

With the help of a “playground” they created for observing exotic physics, MIT scientists and colleagues have not only found a new way to manipulate magnetism in a material with light but have also realized a rare form of matter. The former could lead to applications including computer memory storage devices that can read or write information in a much faster way, while the latter introduces new physics.

A solid material is composed of different types of elementary particles, such as protons and neutrons. Also ubiquitous in such materials are “quasiparticles” that the public is less familiar with...

EPFL researchers have developed a transistor based on excitons – a type of particle most people have not heard of – that is able to function at room temperature. This breakthrough could lead to a new breed of faster, more energy efficient and smaller electronics.

Excitons could revolutionize the way engineers approach electronics. A team of EPFL researchers has created a new type of transistor – one of the components of circuits – using these particles instead of electrons. What is remarkable is that their exciton-based transistor functions effectively at room temperature, a hitherto insurmountable obstacle. They achieved this by using two 2D materials as semiconductors...