Successor to Silicon?

One of the first single-user computers on the market when it came out in 1970 from the now-defunct Computer Terminal Corp., the Datapoint 2200 lives on in every PC today. CTC convinced fellow start-up Intel to reduce the machine's processor to a single chip, to combat system heating. Intel ended up adding the chip to its catalog, founding today's "Intel dynasty" of PC microprocessors. (System heating, alas, remains a problem.)

A new method and material could lead to dramatically faster, more efficient computer chips.

Physicists at the Department of Energy's (DOE) SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory and Stanford University have found that a compound called bismuth telluride shows a clear signature of what is called a topological insulator, a material that enables the free flow of electrons across its surface with no loss of energy.

As they so often say in computer science research, however, more research is needed before it hits the market.