Weyl fermions tagged posts

An ORNL-led research team used neutrons (depicted as spheres) to determine the magnetic structure (seen as blue arrows) of an osmium-based material. X-rays (seen as purple waves) revealed the presence of a strong spin orbit effect (illustrated in red). Credit: ORNL/Jill Hemman

An elusive massless particle could exist in a magnetic crystal structure, revealed by neutron and X-ray research. The team studied a material containing the dense element osmium and documented 2 conditions required for the presence of Weyl fermions -predicted in 1929 and observed experimentally in 2015. Researchers are looking for other materials that could host them to harness their unique properties in spintronics and advanced computing applications such as quantum computers.

“Once you have a material that hosts th...

Weyl fermions could give rise to faster and more efficient electronics because of their unusual ability to behave as matter and antimatter inside a crystal. They could allow for a nearly free and efficient flow of electricity in electronics, and thus greater power, especially for computers.

Proposed by mathematician/ physicist Hermann Weyl in 1929, Weyl fermions have been long sought by scientists because they have been regarded as possible building blocks of other subatomic particles, and are even more basic than electrons (when electrons are moving inside a crystal). Their basic nature means that Weyl fermions could provide a much more stable and efficient transport of particles than electrons, which are the principle particle behind modern electronics...