Researchers have discovered giant conductivity of nanometre-sized domain walls separating polar regions in a non-oxide ferroelectric material. The high sensitivity of these walls to applied magnetic fields enables gigantic switching of the sample resistance, thus providing a route to new nanoelectronic building blocks.
Materials scientists can now shuffle layered compounds together, much like combining two different decks of cards. The technique is leading to development of new materials with unusual electron transport properties that have potential applications in next-generation quantum technologies.
A student-run project is collecting messages from around the world, using nanotechnology to etch them on a disk, and sending the disk to the International Space Station.
The photovoltaic effect of ferroelectric crystals can be increased by a factor of 1,000 if three different materials are arranged periodically in a lattice.
