- Electronic systems are expected to process and store a steadily increasing amount of data, faster and faster, and in less space. Luckily, physicists discover effects that help engineers to develop better electronic components with surprising regularity, for instance a phenomenon known as giant magnetoresistance.
- Modern hard discs utilize this phenomenon to significantly alter the resistance of a material by exposing it to a magnetic field. Until now, the computer industry has used various materials stacked on top of each other in a filigree structure to achieve this effect.
- Now, Max Planck scientists in Dresden have observed a rapid increase in resistance by a factor of 10,000 in a non-complex material, namely niobium phosphide (NbP).