Kroto and Dalal are looking for two-dimensional structures that can support this bottom-up engineering, and in the course of doing that discovered three-dimensional crystalline structures that have concurrent properties of being influenced by electrical current and being influenced by magnetic fields. This is a rare combination in which materials are said to be multiferroic because they are ferroelectric and ferromagnetic at the same time.

So far, the research team has found four such crystals, and expects to be able to create more. While their discoveries are promising a great deal of work needs to be done before suitable materials are found and developed into products.

One major stumbling block is that the mulitferroic properties of the crystals occur only at about -150 degrees Celsius, so they need to discover others that exhibit similar characteristics at higher temperatures to make them practical.

As for the two-dimensional crystals that could succeed silicon as the main material in computer chips, the journey is just starting. "This is where the transistor was when it was first invented," Kroto says. "Many years and billions of dollars have been spent to make silicon the material used in computers, and we have to catch up with silicon. It’s a long, hard road before we catch up."

in Network World's Data Center section.