Physicists making new materials by arranging atoms

HYDERABAD, MARCH 7: Physicists are now making materials by mixing atoms and arranging them according to their wish, Nobel Laureate Profes...

HYDERABAD, MARCH 7: Physicists are now making materials by mixing atoms and arranging them according to their wish, Nobel Laureate Professor Klaus von Klitzing has said.

Scientists at the Max Plank Institute for Fundamental Research in Germany first created a wafer’ of a material and then imported’ atoms of another material. Using special optical devices, these imported atoms were selectively made to sit’ among atoms of the original wafer, creating a new material, Klitzing said.

"Nature does not create such exotic materials. We can now make new materials by arranging the atoms according to our wish. The materials would have an unique architecture at the atomic level", Prof Klitzing said after receiving the B M Birla Award for lifetime achievement here last week.

Like weavers, researchers can now darn new atoms into the main atomic fabric of a metal, creating a tailor-made material for physicists. "These new materials would one day replace the silicon chip and be highly efficient, much faster and veryreliable," according to Klitzing.

Using these materials, scientists can create new lasers, control the movements of atoms, make the flow of electricity more efficient. The "field is open to a new game in Physics," the Nobel Laureate sai

d.About electronic devices, Klitzing said Physics is fast approaching a roadblock in miniaturisation. However, this would mark the beginning of a new era where tiny devices may not obey the classical laws of Physics. "It’s going to be a totally new science… fascinating, and a new playground for players in quantum mechanics," he said.

The end to miniaturisation would come in just a decade, he predicted. This will be the time when silicon, the soul of all semiconductor devices, will reach a pause’ or break, marking the transition from microelectronics to nanoelectroncs.

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Further ahead is picoelectronics, a field which is so new that even frontline researchers have no clue about how materials would behave, Klitzing said.

Present-day technology can produce chips downto 0.2 microns in thickness but the future would see artificial layers controlled to the level of a single atom, he said.

Klitzing received the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1985 for his work on the movement of electrons in certain semiconductors under the influence of extremely powerful magnetic fields, also called the Von Klitzing Effect.