New instrument set to boost semiconductor research

The advance means that research into the development of next generation electronic devices employing 2D materials can now be done at most research universities.

Dr Darren Graham and a team of researchers from Manchester University’s Photon Science Institute collaborated with colleagues from Cambridge University and industry partners from Germany to develop the new instrument that overcomes obstacles to the widespread use of a magnetic field technique called cyclotron resonance.

According to the American Institute of Physics, in a magnetic field, charged particles in a material move in circles around magnetic field lines. The orbiting particles interact with light differently depending on properties like their mass, concentration, and on how they move through the material. By shining light on the material in the magnetic field and recording what frequency and how much light is absorbed, scientists can learn about how easily charged particles move.

Some materials require an extremely high magnetic field to get the charged particles to move fast enough to interact with the light, a factor that has hindered the wider uptake of cyclotron resonance.