Researchers at Auburn University have developed a new type of material that precisely controls free electrons, potentially revolutionizing quantum computing and chemical manufacturing. By immobilizing solvated electron precursors on stable surfaces, the team achieved tunable electron behavior. The findings were published in ACS Materials Letters.
Electrons, the tiny charged particles central to chemical reactions and technological processes, typically remain confined to atoms, limiting their applications. In electrides, however, electrons move freely, enabling new possibilities in energy transfer, bonding, and conductivity. Auburn University's interdisciplinary team, spanning chemistry, physics, and materials engineering, has advanced this field by creating Surface Immobilized Electrides. These materials attach solvated electron precursors—isolated-metal molecular complexes—to durable surfaces like diamond and silicon carbide, making the electrides stable, tunable, and scalable.
The innovation allows electrons to be adjusted: they can form isolated 'islands' acting as quantum bits for advanced computing or spread into extended 'seas' to facilitate complex chemical reactions. This versatility could lead to quantum computers solving intractable problems and catalysts accelerating production of fuels, pharmaceuticals, and industrial materials.
"By learning how to control these free electrons, we can design materials that do things nature never intended," said Dr. Evangelos Miliordos, Associate Professor of Chemistry at Auburn and senior author of the study, which relied on advanced computational modeling.
Earlier electrides suffered from instability and scaling issues, but this surface-based approach overcomes those hurdles, bridging theory to practical devices. "As our society pushes the limits of current technology, the demand for new kinds of materials is exploding," noted Dr. Marcelo Kuroda, Associate Professor of Physics at Auburn. "Our work shows a new path to materials that offer both opportunities for fundamental investigations on interactions in matter as well as practical applications."
"This is fundamental science, but it has very real implications," added Dr. Konstantin Klyukin, Assistant Professor of Materials Engineering. "We're talking about technologies that could change the way we compute and the way we manufacture."
The study, titled "Electrides with Tunable Electron Delocalization for Applications in Quantum Computing and Catalysis," was coauthored by graduate students Andrei Evdokimov and Valentina Nesterova. It received support from the U.S. National Science Foundation and Auburn's computing resources.