Scientists shine new light on the future of nanoelectronic devices

Researchers from the U.S. Department of Energy's Argonne National Laboratory and Oak Ridge National Laboratory and Pusan National University in Busan, South Korea, have examined the changes that occur in the structure of a specific nanomaterial as it changes from conducting an electrical current to not. The material, strontium cobalt oxide, easily switches between conducting and insulating phases. The researchers used a technique, called X-ray photon correlation spectroscopy, that can directly measure how fast the material fluctuates between these two phases at the atomic scale.