Πρώτη φορά Αμερικανοί φυσικοί έδειξαν ότι είναι δυνατό να μεταδοθούν πληροφορίες (δεδομένα) μέσω διαμαντένιου σύρματος. Το πείραμα - ορόσημο αποκαλύπτει τις δυνατότητες που έχουν οι εν λόγω precious stones to be used once in computers and telecommunications. This is the first small step on a long road that can once end up in diamond transistors.
Ohio University researchers, led by physicist Chris Hamel, who made the relevant publication in the journal nanotechnology "Nature Nanotechnology", πέτυχαν να στείλουν κατά μήκος του διαμαντένιου σύρματος ηλεκτρονικές πληροφορίες με την μορφή «σπιν». Ήταν η πρώτη φορά που παρατηρήθηκε μετάδοση «σπιν» σε διαμάντι και μάλιστα αυτό έγινε με τρόπο ιδιαίτερα αποτελεσματικό.
It was not about electron flow in the traditional way of electronic technology, but about exploiting spintronics, a branch of electronics that deals with magnetic "spin" of electrons (their quantum property also called "torque") to carry data. As in a grandstand the spectators create a "wave" as each in turn rises from his seat, so in the case of the diamond wire the electrons successively transmitted their "spin" from one to the other.
"There is no doubt that if this diamond wire was part of a computer, it would transfer information," said Chris Hamel. The wire was only four microns (millimeters long) long and 200 nanometer (billionths of a meter) wide.
Spintronics scientists want to use "spin" to transfer data much faster to computer circuits, so that the latter have much more processing power. The new experiment showed that diamond transmits "spin" better than most metals tested for this purpose so far.
Diamond is a hard, transparent, electrically insulating material, invulnerable to environmental wear and tear, resistant to acids and does not retain heat like the semiconductors used. As Chris Hamel said, “for a scientist the diamonds they're kind of boring, but it's interesting to look at how they can be used on a computer."
With regard to the high cost for a possible wider use of them in the future, it probably will not be a problem if synthetic diamonds are used instead of authentic ones. Instead, a serious technical impediment is that American researchers, in order to carry out the innovative spintronics experiment, had to drop the temperature to minus 269 degrees Celsius (very close to absolute zero). It will still take a lot of progress before making it possible to have a diamond transistor that works at room temperature.
Link: For the original scientific paper (subscription) at address:
http://www.nature.com/nnano/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/nnano.2014.39.html
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