HPCwire: A "Hole" New Quantum Spin

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July 28, 2006

A "Hole" New Quantum Spin

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Electronic devices are always shrinking in size but it's hard to imagine anything beating what researchers at the University of New South Wales have created: a tiny wire that doesn't even use electrons to carry a current. Known as a hole quantum wire, it exploits gaps -- or holes -- between electrons. The relationship between electrons and holes is like that between electrons and anti-electrons, or matter and anti-matter.

The holes can be thought of as real quantum particles that have an electrical charge and a spin. They exhibit remarkable quantum properties and could lead to a new world of super-fast, low-powered transistors and powerful quantum computers.

Associate Professor Alex Hamilton and Dr. Adam Micolich, who lead the UNSW Quantum Electronic Devices group in Sydney, Australia, say the discovery that the holes can carry an electrical current puts the team at the front of its field in the quantum electronics revolution.

"Research groups around the world have been trying to make these devices for more than a decade and we're the first to do so successfully," Professor Hamilton says. "We really do have a big lead now."

Quantum wires are microscopically small, in this case about 100 times narrower than a human hair. They are so narrow that electrons can only pass along them in single file.

Manufacturers are keenly interested in them because they hold the potential for new high-speed electronics applications, known as spintronics, where semiconductor devices have both electric and magnetic properties.

Electrons have both electric (charge) and magnetic (spin) properties but today's micro-chips use only the charge properties of electrons.

"To move ahead with spintronics, we need to be able to control the magnetic properties with electronics," says Professor Hamilton.

"However, in most semiconductors the electron's charge and spin are independent of each other, so we can't control the magnetic properties with electrical impulses."

Quantum wires made it possible to isolate and exercise some control over single electrons. But the UNSW team -- working with researchers in Britain, Japan and New Zealand -- has gone a step further to develop super-clean gallium arsenide quantum wires that use holes, instead of electrons, to carry the current.

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