Penn physicists win $3 million Breakthrough Prize

[mahatmakanejeeves]

SCIENCE

Penn physicists win $3 million Breakthrough Prize

by Tom Avril, Posted: October 17, 2018

Almost from the moment Charles Kane and Eugene Mele predicted the existence of an odd new type of electronic material — a wafer-thin hybrid of an insulator and a conductor — it was expected to play a role in future generations of ultra-fast computers.

The practical applications of that 2005 discovery still lie in the future, but Kane and Mele were named the winners of a mammoth personal reward Wednesday. The two University of Pennsylvania physics professors are to receive the $3 million Breakthrough Prize in Fundamental Physics. ... The award, sponsored by an elite group of tech entrepreneurs, will be given at a Nov. 4 ceremony in Silicon Valley, along with six other $3 million prizes in life sciences, mathematics, and physics.
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The type of material Kane and Mele envisioned is called a two-dimensional topological insulator. Using advanced mathematical tools from the realm of theoretical physics, they showed in their 2005 paper that such materials should exist. Not until 2007 did a team of German scientists actually create the materials, laboriously building them atom by atom from mercury, cadmium, and tellurium.

Topological insulators sparked immediate interest in the world of physics and electronics because they act sort of like a divided highway, with an insulator on one side and a conductor on the other, forcing electrons to travel in an orderly fashion instead of with the usual chaos. ... "I tell my freshmen: 'Think of a crowded train station where people are bumping into each other. What these things do is like providing a conveyor belt on the edge,' " said Mele, 68.
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Posted: October 17, 2018 - 10:30 AM
Tom Avril | @TomAvril1 | [email protected]

[eppur_se_muova]

1. Mmmm yummy -- looking forward to toxic mercury and cadmium in our computers.

I hope they will find other materials first.