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Home > Press > Magnetism drives metals to insulators in new experiment: Study provides new tools to probe novel spintronic devices
An illustration of two domains (blue and orange) divided by a domain wall (white area) in a material. The magnetic order is designated with organized arrows (electron spins) while the colors represent two different domains (but the same magnetic order). In the material pictured here, the domain walls are conductive and the domains are insulating.
CREDIT
Yejun Fang
Abstract:
Like all metals, silver, copper, and gold are conductors. Electrons flow across them, carrying heat and electricity. While gold is a good conductor under any conditions, some materials have the property of behaving like metal conductors only if temperatures are high enough; at low temperatures, they act like insulators and do not do a good job of carrying electricity. In other words, these unusual materials go from acting like a
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Magnetism Drives Metals to Insulators in New Experiment
Like all metals, silver, copper, and gold are conductors. Electrons flow across them, carrying heat and electricity. While gold is a good conductor under any conditions, some materials have the property of behaving like metal conductors only if temperatures are high enough; at low temperatures, they act like insulators and do not do a good job of carrying electricity. In other words, these unusual materials go from acting like a chunk of gold to acting like a piece of wood as temperatures are lowered. Physicists have developed theories to explain this so-called metal-insulator transition, but the mechanisms behind the transitions are not always clear.
Developing new ultrathin metal electrodes has allowed researchers to create semitransparent perovskite solar cells that are highly efficient and can be
Computer simulations identified the conditions under which nanoscale cubes would self-assemble into a grid, incorporating flat triangular shapes between.
The Biden administration made history earlier this year by elevating the director of the Office of Science and Technology Policy to a cabinet-level post. There have long been science advisory bodies within the White House, and there are a number of executive agencies that deal with science, some of them cabinet-level. But this will be the first time in U.S. history that the president’s science advisor will be part of his cabinet.
It is a welcome effort to restore the integrity of science, at a moment when science has been thrust onto the center-stage of public life as something indispensable to political decision-making as well as a source of controversy and distrust. Some have urged the administration to go even further, calling for the creation of a new federal department of science. Such calls to centralize science have a long history, and have grown louder during the coronavirus pandemic, spurred by our government’s haphazard response.