Accidental Discovery Dramatically Improves Electrical Conductivity

[G_j]

http://www.itechpost.com/articles/11786/20131117/accidental-discovery-dramatically-improves-electrical-conductivity.htm

WSU doctoral student Marianne Tarun chanced upon the discovery when she noticed that the conductivity of some strontium titanate shot up after it was left out one day. At first, she and her fellow researchers thought the sample was contaminated, but a series of experiments showed the effect was from light.

"It came by accident," said Tarun. "It's not something we expected. That makes it very exciting to share."

The phenomenon they witnessed-"persistent photoconductivity"-is a far cry from superconductivity, the complete lack of electrical resistance pursued by other physicists, usually using temperatures near absolute zero. But the fact that they've achieved this at room temperature makes the phenomenon more immediately practical.

<snip>

"The discovery of this effect at room temperature opens up new possibilities for practical devices," said Matthew McCluskey, co-author of the paper and chair of WSU's physics department. "In standard computer memory, information is stored on the surface of a computer chip or hard drive. A device using persistent photoconductivity, however, could store information throughout the entire volume of a crystal."

This approach, called holographic memory, "could lead to huge increases in information capacity," McCluskey said.

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[Drale]

1. The best discoveries seem to also be made by chance

Just proves that even if what your working on fails, don't give up because it might lead to something else completely different and awesome.