Magnetic quantum dots

more dots, by oskay
not quantum dots
Scientist #1: “You got your manganese in my germanium!”
Scientist #2: “You got your germanium in my manganese!”
Both: “Wow! Magnetic quantum dots!”

Of course science doesn’t really happen like this. The pithy exchange above summarizes two years of hard research by an international team of scientists led by Dr. Jin Zou, chair in nanoscience at the University of Queensland’s Centre for Microscopy and Microanalysis. They found that adding a little bit of manganese to your typical germanium created semiconductors in which the magnetic spin of an electron could be measured in addition to the typical ability to control the movement of electrons within a circuit.

According to the research, the scientists “were also able to demonstrate electric field control using the quantum dots at temperatures up to 100 Kelvin, or –173 C.” That’s a little cold for most consumer application, so the next logical step, from my point of view, is to simply move all this “cloud computing storage” out into space!

Via CBC News.