IBM researchers at the Thomas J Watson Research Center in New York have demonstated for the first time that high energy electrons, travelling at speeds greater than a million miles per hour and injected into ultra thin layers of Gallium Arsenide, can be focussed and steered without scattering as they travel the very low temperature of minus 268oC: by applying varying voltages to a curved lens, the beam could be deflected by up to 60o; the two micron wide impurity-free region of semiconductor acts as a type of microelectronic switch, and eventually IBM hopes to apply the technique to create new types of electronic devices and circuits that use directed electron beams.
