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malfist • today at 9:41 PM • 2 replies • view on HN

Okay? Aren't the semiconductors we use today room temperature? I certainly don't use helium to cool my phone.

I don't see any claims that this is better than the current silicon and gallium arsenide semiconductors that we use. And the use of "room temperature" seems a deliberate attempt to misconstrue this with superconductors


Replies

drdeca • today at 10:18 PM

1) the “room temperature” bit did cause me to initially misread it in the way you describe, so you may be right about that.

2) it is specifically saying it is a magnetic semiconductor. The Wikipedia article on the topic says “ To date, GaMnAs remains the only semiconductor material with robust coexistence of ferromagnetism persisting up to rather high Curie temperatures around 100–200 K.” , so this would be something new. (The silicon chips in your smartphone are not ferromagnetic.)

maipen • today at 10:21 PM

Any sort of alternative discovery, even though it may be inferior, is a great achievement made by AI; Meaning that better discoveries are possible too.