An international team led by the University of Geneva (UNIGE) has created a quantum material that allows the fabric of space filled with electrons to bend as needed. The emergence of advanced information and communication technologies presents scientists and industry with new obstacles to overcome. The most promising approach to solving these problems is the development of new quantum materials that derive their excellent properties from the principles of quantum physics.

A global collaboration led by the University of Geneva (UNIGE) and involving researchers from the universities of Salerno, Utrecht and Delft has developed a material that allows electrons to be controlled by their dynamics by disrupting the fabric of space in which they evolve. This progress is promising for future electronic devices, especially in the field of optoelectronics. The findings were published in a journal Nature Supplies.

The telecommunications of the future will require new, extremely powerful electronic devices. They must be able to process electromagnetic signals at an unprecedented rate in the picosecond range, that is, within a thousandth of a billionth of a second. This is unthinkable with current semiconductor materials such as silicon, which is widely used in the electronic components of our phones, computers and game consoles. To achieve this, scientists and industry are focusing on the development of new quantum materials.

Thanks to their unique properties – particularly the bulk reactions of the electrons that compose them – these quantum materials can be used to capture, manipulate and transmit information-carrying signals (like photons in the case of quantum telecommunications) in new electronic devices. . They can also operate in as yet undiscovered electromagnetic frequency ranges, thus paving the way for very high-speed communication systems.

warp driver

“One of the most interesting properties of quantum matter is that electrons can evolve in curved space. Due to this disruption of the space in which the electrons live, force fields create dynamics that are completely absent in ordinary materials. This is an extraordinary application of the principle of quantum superposition,” explains the Department of Quantum Physics of Matter, UNIGE Faculty of Natural Sciences. Its professor and last author of the study is Andrea Caviglia.

After initial theoretical work, an international research team from the universities of Geneva, Salerno, Utrecht and Delft developed a material in which the curvature of the space fabric can be controlled.

“We developed an interface containing an extremely thin layer of free electrons. It is sandwiched between two insulating oxides, strontium titanate and lanthanum aluminate,” says Carmine Ortix, professor at the University of Salerno and coordinator of the theoretical work. This combination gives rise to specific electron geometry configurations that can be controlled as needed. allows.