Chirality yields colossal photocurrent

The Weyl semimetal Tantalum Arsenide has a colossal bulk photovoltaic effect – an intrinsic, or non-linear, generation of current from light more than ten times larger than ever previously achieved, according to researchers from Boston College, the University of California Los Angeles, and Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne. Credit: Kenneth Burch/Boston College Read more here. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41563-019-0297-4

One-Way Transfer of Magnetic Fields

Researchers have created a material that acts as a magnetic diode, transferring magnetism from one object to another but not the other way around. An electric current flowing through a coil of copper wire induces a magnetic field in the coil. This magnetic field can then transfer to a nearby magnetic object, such as a second coil of wire. The laws of electromagnetism, and experimental…