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LSU scientist helps create new alloy

  • Advocate Capitol News Bureau
  • Published: Aug 21, 2008 - Page: 8A - UPDATED: 12:05 a.m.
An LSU researcher has helped create an intermediary alloy that exists somewhere between magnets and silicon, which is a semiconductor.

The discovery by LSU researcher John DiTusa and a team of international scientists is being published today in the prominent academic journal Nature.

“It’s amazing that something that thus far was thought to be in the realm of mathematical physics could be found in an alloy formed by simply melting together a few common elements,” DiTusa said in an LSU news release.

DiTusa said the ferromagnet iron was combined with silicon, and a small amount of manganese was then added to create a new material.

“While the discovery is certainly a fundamental one, it also has technical implications. It suggests new ways to control the current and magnetism of a semiconducting material, control that is necessary for designing new ways to increase speed and information storage capacity of computers,” DiTusa said.

His co-authors include first author N. Manyala of the National University of Lesotho, Gabriel Aeppli of the London Center for Nanotechnology and A.P. Ramirez of LGS Bell Labs Innovations, among others.

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