Computer chips are already processing information in nanoseconds. How much faster do we need them to go?
Try femtoseconds.
That's 1 million times faster than today's microchips.
Scientists accidentally discovered how to do it.
Jack Tulyag and his team of chemists were fooling around, combining elements, when they combined rhenium, selenium, and chlorine. The specific accidental formulation was Re₆Se₈Cl₂.
They decided to bring the compound over to chemist Xavier Roy's lab to test out a new microscope.
Then they noticed that the new material was conducting electricity, but very slowly and very accurately - just like silicon, today's premiere semiconductor.
The electrons were going even slower and more directly, which in a weird way makes processing faster.
It's kind of like the old story of the tortoise and the hare. An electron in normal material is like the hare. While it moves literally lightning fast, it goes all over the place.
Imagine a rabbit with ADHD, hopped up on sugar, trying to pin the tail on a donkey.
He might get there eventually, but someone at that party is going to lose an eye long before the donkey gets a tail.
Silicon and this new material act like a tortoise with a chill pill.
They calm the rabbit down, and the tortoise slowly guides the rabbit to the donkey. Then the donkey gets its tail much faster with less pin-induced blindness along the way.
The big problem with the new discovery is the rhenium.
It turns out that while silicon is one of the most abundant materials on Earth, rhenium is super rare, which makes it expensive.
Still, the chemists are confident that, having seen the properties of the new material in action, they can find a more abundant substitute material for the rhenium, which means computers may be making a huge leap forward very soon.
I can't wait to start listening to audio books at 1 million times normal speed.
Think of all the time I'll save!
P.S. Now check out our latest video 👇
