Researchers
at Berkeley Lab’s Advanced Light Source Find New Form of Quantum Matter
The
discovery of what is essentially a 3D version of graphene – the 2D sheets of
carbon through which electrons race at many times the speed at which they move
through silicon – promises exciting new things to come for the high-tech
industry, including much faster transistors and far more compact hard drives. A
collaboration of researchers at the U.S Department of Energy (DOE)’s Lawrence
Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) has discovered that sodium
bismuthate can exist as a form of quantum matter called a three-dimensional
topological Dirac semi-metal (3DTDS). This is the first experimental
confirmation of 3D Dirac fermions in the interior or bulk of a material, a
novel state that was only recently proposed by theorists.