Researchers say new state of matter could extend Moore's Law

There's certainly been no shortage of folks trying to pin down an end date for Moore's Law, but there's also thankfully plenty of researchers doing their best to keep it going, and a team of physicists from McGill University in Montreal now say they've made a discovery that could keep the law alive even further into the future. Their big breakthrough is a new state of matter known as a quasi-three-dimensional electron crystal, which they discovered in a semiconductor material by using a device cooled at temperatures "roughly 100 times colder than intergalactic space," and then exposing the material to the "most powerful continuous magnetic fields generated on Earth." Unlike two-dimensional electron crystals, which lead researcher Dr. Guillaume Gervais equates to a ham sandwich, the quasi-three-dimensional electron crystals are in an "in-between state" between 2D and 3D, which could potentially allow for transistors to improve further as they run up against the physical limits imposed by the laws of physics.

[Via InformationWeek, image courtesy University of Cambridge]

[jorvay @ Oct 22nd 2008 1:34PM]

McGill University: where the smartest minds meet the best poutine.

[dajimmers @ Oct 22nd 2008 2:14PM]

Candy corn!

[dajimmers @ Oct 22nd 2008 2:16PM]

Ugh, that was supposed to go with the next post. I guess my comment got stuck between the right post and the wrong article, and ended up here!

[CraigJ @ Oct 22nd 2008 2:35PM]

poutine is one of my favorite dishes. unfortunately I can't get it here in Phoenix. Probably for the best considering the contents of poutine and the state of my arteries...

[tom @ Oct 22nd 2008 2:56PM]

Buy a New York Fries franchise, and be your own boss.

Big Business =D

[phanbouy @ Oct 22nd 2008 3:37PM]

at first i thought poutine was a french kind of poontang

[konshuss @ Oct 22nd 2008 5:18PM]

i am somewhere in between impressed and befuddled.

[Valicore @ Oct 22nd 2008 5:24PM]

Poutine FTW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Stefan @ Oct 22nd 2008 10:06PM]

I live in Quebec so i eat poutine often . You can easily do it at home you know. But always take fresh knife cut potatoes ,it's so much better.

[Ian @ Oct 23rd 2008 12:01AM]

Poontine for the win?

[who? @ Oct 22nd 2008 1:34PM]

That picture looks like a trippy visualizer...

[Testies, Testies, 1, 2... 3? @ Oct 22nd 2008 1:50PM]

no

[who? @ Oct 22nd 2008 1:55PM]

Yes

[dark star @ Oct 22nd 2008 2:01PM]

i see nipples.
they're everywhere!!!!

[who? @ Oct 22nd 2008 2:09PM]

@dark star

LOL!!! 8>()

[Boards of Canada @ Oct 23rd 2008 1:31AM]

Why darkstar is low ranked... nipples are indeed everywhere! we have so much in my family...

[idiot @ Oct 22nd 2008 1:34PM]

So quasi-three-dimensional electron crystals=party hoagie?

[BJ is Gooder @ Oct 22nd 2008 1:38PM]

I was thinking the same thing!!

[JaceFace @ Oct 22nd 2008 1:38PM]

that sounds about right.

[Architect @ Oct 22nd 2008 1:39PM]

What a load of crap. All these theories and no real truth to any of it. Just a way to bleed the system dry of funds.

[cduran01 @ Oct 22nd 2008 1:42PM]

If you think you can do better, lets hear your theory. Come on, show us what you can do.

Real science takes time, none of the stuff we take for granted now came about overnight.

[A @ Oct 22nd 2008 1:46PM]

Just because you're too stupid too understand it doesn't mean it lacks truth.

[who? @ Oct 22nd 2008 1:46PM]

The moon landing was faked. DVD players just have really small people in them. The Atom Bomb is a hoax. Area 51 is a military ballet club. You aren't reading this right now. Scientific conjecture bears no fruit.

/sarcastic rant

[KarlW @ Oct 22nd 2008 2:19PM]

I'm talking to you from inside your own head.

Burn the house down.

[Precurse @ Oct 22nd 2008 2:53PM]

@Who

Oh you forgot the MOST famous one .. The Holocaust wasn't real

[Meus @ Oct 22nd 2008 1:41PM]

call a friend if you understood that...

[who? @ Oct 22nd 2008 1:47PM]

What, you don't have any friends?

[kellogs908 @ Oct 22nd 2008 1:42PM]

I will cool down your quasi-three-dimensional electron crystal if you know what I mean......hopefully you do cause I sure don't

[who? @ Oct 22nd 2008 1:48PM]

... nope, I'm coming up empty.

[Rekit @ Oct 22nd 2008 1:46PM]

:brain explodes:

[who? @ Oct 22nd 2008 1:49PM]

*implodes(?)

[Poom @ Oct 22nd 2008 1:55PM]

exactly. >_

[decypher44 @ Oct 22nd 2008 2:11PM]

* asplodes


I don't know what any of that in the article means, but I like it!

[Shunnabunich @ Oct 22nd 2008 6:41PM]

No no no...

* quasi-flattens

[Chris Anderson @ Oct 22nd 2008 1:51PM]

So...they're saying they cooled something "roughly 100 times colder than intergalactic space,"....

as far as i can tell, intergalactic space has an average temperature of around 2.7 degrees Kelvin. If absolute Zero is 0.0 degrees Kelvin, how is this possible? I wasn't aware we could produce temperatures lower than absolute zero, or even get CLOSE to 0.0 K. but a HUNDRED times colder than 2.7K?

can somebody offer any insight?

[Poom @ Oct 22nd 2008 1:56PM]

hundred times (multiply/divide), not hundred kelvin cooler (absolute scale, plus/minus). So, it's more like 2.7K/100.

[cdude @ Oct 22nd 2008 1:57PM]

Agreed. I'm suprised it took like 20 posts for someone to question that.

"hey guise if we ignore physics we can do whatever we want huuurrrr"

[däniel @ Oct 22nd 2008 1:57PM]

if by "a hundred times cooler" they mean 1/100th as warm, then i guess it's possible... would it be 0.027 Kelvin then?

[who? @ Oct 22nd 2008 1:58PM]

2.7 / 100 = .027 degree Kelvin

technically, .027 is one hundred times colder than 2.7.

[Chris Anderson @ Oct 22nd 2008 2:02PM]

I see now :) i wasn't sure if they were implying a huge breakthrough in cooling technologies that allowed us to break the 0K barrier

[Timerider @ Oct 22nd 2008 2:05PM]

Since when does dividing 2.7 by 100 get less than zero? No matter how much you divide a positive number, it will never reach zero.
Someone needs to go back to middle school.

[who? @ Oct 22nd 2008 2:20PM]

Hey, go easy on him, he was probably just thinking of it relatively:

2.7 - (2.7 x 100)

As in "One hundred times the temperature of intergalactic space colder." What really surprises me is how nobody has pointed out the fact that these 'scientists' used 'colder' is a scientific term. Coldness doesn't technically exist, just the lack of heat (energy in thermal form).

[jorvay @ Oct 22nd 2008 3:09PM]

Please, we are talking about Montreal here. It's 0.27K outside right now!

[Timerider @ Oct 23rd 2008 1:18AM]

Sorry, it just bugs me when someone doesn't understand something that's pretty straight forward. I don't want to be a jerk.

[jorge f @ Oct 22nd 2008 1:56PM]

OMG! i can wait to see the movie, it sounds great!

[Lowest Ranked @ Oct 22nd 2008 2:51PM]

Uh, then wait.

[Asspigeon @ Oct 22nd 2008 1:57PM]

Woohoo! Go McGill (currently an undergraduate there)

[Warren @ Oct 22nd 2008 2:01PM]

The hundred times colder than space is obviously bogus. We cannot go colder than 0 Kelvin- yet. We cannot even go to 0 Kelvin.
0 Kelvin is to tempature as the speed of light is to velocity, Those are 2 holy grails that are currently out of our reach.

This is a poor article. I would like to hear why this would make computers faster. What is the practical application, and how much smaller could we go?

Come on Donald, can you do better. I'm sure you can.

[Timerider @ Oct 22nd 2008 2:08PM]

No one said anything about less than absolute zero. You can't anyway.
Do the math.

[John @ Oct 22nd 2008 2:08PM]

no, 0 kelvin is something that can not be "broken" anymore than a car can go any slower than 0 mph in terms of absolute velocity.