It's A Magnet! It's A Semiconductor! Wait ... What Is It?

Wednesday, August 20, 2008 - 13:56 in Physics & Chemistry

The semiconductor silicon and the ferromagnet iron are the basis for much of mankind's technology, used in everything from computers to electric motors. Writing in Nature, an international group of scientists from the UK, USA and Lesotho report that they have combined these elements with a small amount of another common metal, manganese, to create a new material which is neither a magnet nor an ordinary semiconductor. They then show how a small magnetic field can be used to switch ordinary semiconducting behavior (such as that seen in the electronic-grade silicon which is used to make transistors) back on. Read More...

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