Something Borrowed, Something New

Sunday…….fire up the grill…..laugh awhile….love awhile…..and live….for tomorrow we return to the seedy side of society……politicians and their friends…….

My daughter tells a joke about the molecules in a Twinkie…..how after an extended time in a microwave it turns into a small rubber raft….the moral of the story is that caution needs to be observed when messing around with molecules……

Physics is taking some large leaps froward….up until about a decade ago….there was not much new in the field……but little geniuses have been skipping along manipulating existing molecules……..what have they discovered?

Glad you ask!

Researchers from Stanford University and the U.S. Department of Energy’s SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory have created the first-ever system of “designer electrons” – exotic variants of ordinary electrons with tunable properties that may ultimately lead to new types of materials and devices.

“The behavior of electrons in materials is at the heart of essentially all of today’s technologies,” said Hari Manoharan, associate professor of physics at Stanford and a member of SLAC’s Stanford Institute for Materials and Energy Science, who led the research. “We’re now able to tune the fundamental properties of electrons so they behave in ways rarely seen in ordinary materials.”

Their first examples, reported Wednesday in Nature, were handcrafted, honeycomb-shaped structures inspired by graphene, a pure form of carbon that has been widely heralded for its potential in future electronics.

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Rock on Nerdy Dudes and Dudettes!