ambridge and Birmingham University physicists have shown that electrons present in narrow wires are able to split into two particles called spinons and holons.
Electrons are fundamental building blocks of nature and cannot be split in isolation, yet when they are crowded into narrow wires, the electrons then split apart.
An electron carries electricity within wires, and is also responsible for making magnets.
It is interesting that that both electric charge and magnetism are properties that are carried by electrons, and under normal circumstances, an electron cannot be broken apart.
The scenario seems to change however when electrons are brought together. what happens is that the similarly charged electrons seem to change the way they behave when grouped, in order to avoid getting to close to each other.
When used in ordinary methods, this usually does not make too much of a difference to the electrons' behaviour. In a very narrow wire however, these electrons find it much more difficult to avoid each other, and the resulting effect is that movement of the electrons are exacerbated, as they try to avoid each other.
Already in 1981, a physicist called Duncan Haldane claimed that this would happen under the lowest temperatures. The two properties that these electrons possess, magnetism and electrical charge, would seem to cause the electrons to split in order for these properties to remain separate. Hence, the electron splits into two new types of particle called spinons and holons.
The challenge for the physicists was to group together the electrons so tightly in a 'quantum wire', and then bring the wire close enough to an ordinary metal, in order for the electrons in the metal to 'jump' into the wire by quantum tunneling.
By applying a magnetic field they were able to observe how the electron needed to fall apart into the two new properties - spinons and halons.
Dr Chris Ford from the University of Cambridge's Cavendish Laboratory says, 'We had to develop the technology to pass a current between a wire and a sheet only 30 atomic widths apart.'
The measurments needed to be made at a very low temperature - about one tenth of a degree above absolute zero.
The consensus from this experiment is that this behaviour may form the basis of the future quantum computer. The reasoning behind this is because of the fact that Quantum wires are widely used to connect up quantum 'dots'. Dr Chris Ford was quoted as saying that this could lead to a new computer revolution.
The basic principle behind the quantum computer theory is that quantum properties can be used to represent data, and then perform operations on these data. At the moment many national government and military funding agencies support research on quantum computing.
Experiment performed in Cambridge's Cavendish Laboratory with theoretical support from scientists at the University of Birmingham's School of Physics and Astronomy.
Source and more info: University of Cambridge
