Published in Chemistry World, 23 May 2010
Chemists in Japan have created the first material that can undergo a photoreversible transition from metal to semiconductor. The breakthrough heralds applications in ultra high density data storage, with 500 times the density of a Blu-ray disc.
The past decade has seen a growing interest in ways to switch the physical properties of matter. Temperature and pressure can both turn materials, say, from insulators to metals, or from non-magnetic to magnetic, but they are difficult to control in complex memory devices. As a result, researchers have been looking at photoinduced phase transitions, for which the key stimulus is laser light. Recently, laser light has been shown to switch certain materials from amorphous to crystalline, from neutral to charged, or from one colour to another. […]
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