Researchers put a new spin on atomic musical chairs
Wednesday, December 2, 2009 - 12:35
in Physics & Chemistry
Researchers from the National Institute of Standards and Technology and the Naval Research Laboratory have developed a new way to introduce magnetic impurities in a semiconductor crystal by prodding it with a scanning tunneling microscope (STM). Detailed in a recent paper, this technique will enable researchers to selectively implant atoms in a crystal one at a time to learn about its electrical and magnetic properties on the atomic scale.