A team of physicists from Indiana University has worked with the University of Tennessee to make microchips smaller, according to IU News.
Microchips are small units of circuitry used in several applications, including computers, cars and GPS trackers. While microchips are constantly improved, in order to conduct electricity, its design process must change in order to accommodate those improvements.
The university physicists found that helium plays an integral role in the design process to make microchips smaller, said IU News.
"In a traditional system, as you put more transistors on, the wires get smaller," IU physics professor Paul Sokol said. "But under newly designed systems, it's like confining the electrons in a one-dimensional tube, and that behavior is quite different from a regular wire."
Alongside Adrian Del Maestro, a physics professor at the University of Tennessee, Sokol modeled helium in a one-dimensional tube.
Sokol told IU News that creating the model caused some challenges, especially since it’s never been done before. He said making measurements and employing techniques, like neutron scattering, were very difficult. Neutron scattering is a process in which a reactor or accelerator is used to examine particle behavior in a one-dimensional system.
In a University of Tennessee article, Del Maestro explained that they had to make a pipe only a few atoms wide in order to allow liquid flow.
The physicists nano-engineered a material made with glasses and argon to be able to hold more helium and enable the neutron scattering technique.
Sokol said the molecules were essentially confined in a row and that, with the helium model, they could explore the entirety of physics in a way that no other system let them do before.
The research and modeling will allow scientists to use the same system to study helium at high and low densities, IU News said. Their research also alluded to developing other nanoengineered materials and examining other helium-related theories.
