(July 16, 2015) An
international team led by Princeton University scientists has discovered an
elusive massless particle theorized 85 years ago. The particle could give rise
to faster and more efficient electronics because of its unusual ability to
behave as matter and antimatter inside a crystal, according to new research.
The researchers report in the journal Science July 16 the
first observation of Weyl fermions, which, if applied to next-generation electronics,
could allow for a nearly free and efficient flow of electricity in electronics,
and thus greater power, especially for computers, the researchers suggest.
Proposed by the mathematician and 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 the ubiquitous, negative-charge carrying electron (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.
Unlike electrons, Weyl fermions are massless and possess a high degree of
mobility; the particle's spin is both in the same direction as its motion —
which is known as being right-handed — and in the opposite direction in which
it moves, or left-handed.
"The physics of the Weyl fermion are so strange, there
could be many things that arise from this particle that we're just not capable
of imagining now," said corresponding author M. Zahid Hasan, a Princeton
professor of physics who led the research team.