Australia (Commonwealth Union) – Researcher at the Australian National University (ANU) have made a new discovery that is set to impact technology in a variety of sectors. The consistent evolution of technology has had many positive impacts on society. The 1990s saw the emergence of the internet go mainstream however in its early days the internet remained slow and unaffordable to many. Advances in technology and competition have taken internet usage from a luxury to an affordable essential.
Electrical engineers at ANU have found a technique to form exciton pairs in a new semiconductor structure, initiating next generation technologies in demand for high-speed computing, information processing and data communication. The study has opened doors for a new generation of smartphones and computers with lightning speeds together with lower energy in comparison to the current devices.
The technology came about by sandwiching 2 sheets of bendable monolayer semiconductors and permitting interlayer excitons to combine together and create pairs. The interlayer exciton is a quasiparticle produced from a negatively charged electron and a positively charged “hole” lying in 2 different layers. Interlayer excitons form when light is taken into a bilayer semiconductor.
Professor Yuerui (Larry) Lu who is the lead author said: “Interlayer exciton pairs were predicted by theory decades ago, but we are the first to observe them in experiment.” The discovery can assist the scientists bring about superfluidity, a state in which electrical currents can move without losing energy.
According to PhD researcher Xueqian Sun, superfluidity is best pictured as a “super highway” permitting excitons to move in super-fast speeds. Professor Lu further indicated that the next obstacle is to form a way to bring about the exciton super highway function at room temperature, which plays a significant role to integrate the technology into our smart devices. A technology that is likely to be welcomed by an ever-growing number of smart device users.
