Another material could replace the silicon chip

Specialists at the National Accelerator Laboratory (USA) and the University of Stanford have confirmed the existence of a new type of material that could someday be used to make faster and more efficient computer chips. This material, bismuth telluride, allows electrons to travel on its surface without losing energy at room temperature and can be created using current semiconductor technology. Conventional electronic chips are made of a small piece of silicon, which is made by cooling pure melted silicon that then solidifies into a crystal. These plates are chemically “doped” with impurities to improve their ability to conduct electricity. The type of impurities affects the direction of the electrical charge. However, the weakness of the silicon chips is that they are very sensitive to heat. This is a factor that makes the use of fans and other cooling elements necessary, which in turn limits the future miniaturization of computers. The physics Yulin Chen and Zhi-Xun Shen tested the behavior of the electrons on bismuth telluride, the previously mentioned compound. The results, published in the last online edition of Science Express, show a clear signature of what is called a topological insulator, a material capable of encouraging the free flow of electrons on its surface without losing energy. The advance is more significant since these researchers have proved that capacity at room temperature.