September 2021
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Engineers Report Major Advance in Creating New Family of Semiconductor Materials
Work has potential to impact multiple fields of technology
MIT engineers report creating the first high-quality thin films of a new family of semiconductor materials. The feat, which lead researcher Rafael Jaramillo refers to as his “white whale” because of his obsession in pursuing it over the years, has the potential to impact multiple fields of technology if history repeats itself. The ability to create high-quality films of other families of semiconductors led to computers, solar cells, night-vision cameras, and more.

Physicists Report Promising Approach to Harnessing Exotic Electronic Behavior
MIT physicists have found that a moiré superlattice (pictured at right) could be used to harness an exotic kind of electronic behavior. The superlattice is composed of two sheets of atomically thin layers of graphene (a single sheet is at left) placed on top of each other and rotated at a slight angle. Image credit: Pablo Jarillo-Herrero et al., MIT
Work could introduce new field of physics with many applications
For some 50 years scientists have worked to harness Bloch oscillations, an exotic kind of behavior by electrons that could introduce a new field of physics—and important new technologies—much like more conventional electronic behavior has led to everything from smart watches to computers powerful enough to get us to the Moon. Now, MIT physicists report on a new approach to achieving Bloch oscillations in recently introduced graphene superlattices.
Physicists Show That a “Quasiparticle” Made of Light and Matter Can Be Dragged by a
Current of Electrons
In this illustration, a set of polariton waves (at left), interact with drifting electrons in a sheet of graphene. The warped fabric of space-time (upper left) represents the related concept of relativity. Image credit: Yinan Dong, Denis Bandurin, and Ella Maru Studio
Work could impact optical computing, nanolasers, more
New research led by physicists at MIT and Columbia University shows that a quasiparticle made of waves of photons and electrons—a plasmon polariton—has a similar ability to change speeds when immersed in an electrical current flowing through a sheet of graphene. But there’s a hitch: the polaritons appear to more easily shift gears in one direction—to a slightly slower speed—when traveling against the flow of electrons.
Researchers find a new way to control magnets
Arrows indicate the magnetizations of the arrays of gadolinium (red) and cobalt (blue) atoms in a lattice. Applying a voltage to electrodes at the top (yellow patches) loads hydrogen into the magnetic material, which changes the relative magnitude of the magnetizations under it, flipping the direction of the overall magnetic field in that area. Image credit: Courtesy of the researchers
Reversible system can flip the magnetic orientation of particles with a small voltage; could lead to faster data storage and smaller sensors.
Most of the magnets we encounter daily are made of “ferromagnetic” materials. The north-south magnetic axes of most atoms in these materials are lined up in the same direction, so their collective force is strong enough to produce significant attraction. These materials form the basis for most of the data storage devices in today’s high-tech world.
Less common are magnets based on ferrimagnetic materials, with an “i.” In these, some of the atoms are aligned in one direction, but others are aligned in precisely the opposite way.
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