A 2015 study created a long-sought particle in a crystal of tantalum-arsenide. A detector image (top) shows the telltale sign of Weyl fermions, with the plus and minus signs denoting fermions of opposite chirality or handedness. The bottom schematic shows that even Weyl fermions with opposite charge-like characteristics can still move independently of one another, making them more mobile than other charged particles.
Credit: Su-Yang Xu and M. Zahid Hasan, Princeton Department of Physics
A long-sought particle with no mass proposed more than 85 years ago has finally been created in the lab.
The mysterious particle, called a Weyl fermion, emerged from a crystal of a material called a semi-metal. By bombarding the crystal with photons, the team produced a stream of electrons that collectively behaved like the elusive subatomic particles.
The new discovery not only sheds light on the behavior of one of the most elusive fundamental particles, it could pave the way for ultra-low-power electronics, said study co-author Su-Yang Xu, a physicist at Princeton University in New Jersey.
by Tia Ghose, Senior Writer
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