Image Credit: Scientific Frontline
Scientific Frontline: Extended "At a Glance" Summary
The Core Concept: Researchers have identified specific achiral "parent" materials that can be engineered into electronically chiral materials with a single, uniform handedness through targeted structural distortion.
Key Distinction/Mechanism: Unlike traditional materials where resistivity increases as they shrink (e.g., copper), these parent compounds utilize specific electronic structures—visualized as "figure eight" shapes on their Fermi surfaces—that can be manipulated. By adjusting electron filling and applying distortion, these achiral precursors transition into chiral conductors that may maintain or even decrease electrical resistance at microscopic scales.
Origin/History: The discovery was announced in January 2026 by physicists at Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg (MLU) and the Max Planck Institute for Microstructure Physics. The findings were published in Nature Communications (2025) and are central to the new "Centre for Chiral Electronics" (EXC 3112).
Major Frameworks/Components:
- Chirality: The geometric property where an object (or electronic structure) cannot be superimposed onto its mirror image.
- Fermi Surfaces: The abstract boundary in momentum space useful for predicting the electrical properties of metals; here specifically observed as "figure eight" (Octdong) or Spindle-Torus shapes.
- Kramers Nodal Line Metals: The specific class of metallic materials investigated for these tunable electronic properties.
Branch of Science: Condensed Matter Physics, Microelectronics, and Materials Science.
Future Application: Development of next-generation microchips that are significantly faster, more robust, and energy-efficient by utilizing thin layers of materials with uniform electronic chirality.
Why It Matters: As conventional microelectronics approach physical limits where shrinking components causes unmanageable electrical resistance, this discovery offers a viable pathway to bypass those limits, enabling the continued miniaturization and efficiency of computing technology.
Chirality is a fundamental property in nature. It means that an object cannot be made to coincide with its mirror image by rotation and translation. Physicists at Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg (MLU) have now been able to show for the first time that there is a kind of precursor for electronically chiral materials. They discovered these materials together with the Max Planck Institute for Microstructure Physics. The results, published in the journal “Nature Communications”, could pave the way to produce thin layers with uniform chirality, providing important impetus for the next generation of microelectronics.
One of the biggest problems facing modern microelectronics is that computer chips can no longer be made arbitrarily smaller and more efficient. Materials used to date, such as copper, are reaching their limits because their resistivity increases dramatically when they become too small. Chiral materials could provide a solution here. These materials behave like left and right hands: they look almost identical and are mirror images of each other but cannot be made to match.
"It is assumed that the resistivity in some chiral materials remains constant or even decreases as the chiral material becomes smaller. That is why we are working on using electronic chirality to develop materials for a new generation of microchips that are faster, more energy-efficient and more robust than today's technologies," says Professor Niels Schröter from the Institute of Physics at MLU. Until now, however, it has been difficult to produce thin layers of these materials without the left- and right-handed areas cancelling each other out in their effects.
This is precisely where the new study, in which the Max Planck Institute for Microstructure Physics in Halle was also involved, comes in. "For the first time, we have found materials that are not yet chiral themselves. However, they have the potential to be converted into electronically chiral materials with only a single handedness through targeted distortion. These achiral materials can serve as so-called parent materials for engineering chiral conductors with reduced resistivity," explains Schröter.
Using modern measurement methods and precise computer simulations, the researchers were able to visualize the electronic structure of the Fermi surfaces of the materials. These surfaces significantly determined the behavior of the electrons in the material. "The electrons form a kind of figure eight on their Fermi surface in these materials," explains Gabriele Domaine from the Max Planck Institute of Microstructure Physics, a doctoral student in the project and first author of the study. "When we examined a similar material with more electrons, suddenly there was no longer an 'eight'. So, we were able to show the transition from 'eight' to 'no eight' in different materials with differences in electron filling."
The research team now plans to investigate the observed effects in other materials and further refine the approach.
Published in journal: Nature Communications
Title: Tunable Octdong and Spindle-Torus Fermi Surfaces in Kramers Nodal Line Metals
Authors: Gabriele Domaine, Moritz M. Hirschmann, Kirill Parshukov, Mihir Date, Holger L. Meyerheim, Matthew D. Watson, Katayoon Mohseni, Sydney K. Y. Dufresne, Shigemi Terakawa, Marcin Rosmus, Natalia Olszowska, Stuart S. P. Parkin, Andreas P. Schnyder, and Niels B. M. Schröter
Source/Credit: Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg
Reference Number: phy012926_03
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