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Smartphones and computers are having to process more information than ever before, but the outdated materials they are made of are not equipped to handle such a steep rise in demand.

Now, scientists have found a way to speed up how fast all this information can be processed by developing a new, future-proof class of materials.

And they have discovered a quantum effect that enables electrons to dash through the interior of these materials with very little resistance.

Scientists from Princeton University have developed a new material, called topological Dirac semi-metal. Its structure means electrons pass through its interior, rather than just along its surface, and this paves the way for electronics, such as phones and tablets, to process information much faster. Illustration pictured

The base material is known as a 'topological insulator,' in which electrons move along the surface without penetrating the interior.

This latest research, from Princeton University, found electrons also can flow through the interior of some of these materials.

These new materials have been called 'topological Dirac semi-metals', after English quantum physicist and 1933 Nobel Prize winner Paul Dirac, who was the first to note electrons could behave like light.

'With this discovery, instead of facing the challenge of how to use only the electrons on the surface of a material, now you can just cut the material open and you have light-like electrons flowing in three dimensions inside the materials,' said lead researcher M. Zahid Hasan, a professor of physics at Princeton.

WHY IS THIS BREAKTHROUGH SO SIGNIFICANT?

In most materials, including copper and other metals that conduct electricity, electrons navigate an obstacle course of microscopic outcroppings, ledges and other imperfections that obstruct the  particles and send them scattering in the wrong directions.

This causes resistance and the conversion of electrical current into heat, which is why electronic appliances become warm during use.

In topological insulators, and the new class of materials the Princeton researchers studied, the unique properties of the atoms combine to create quantum effects that coax electrons into acting similar to a light wave, instead of like individual particles.

These properties were theoretically proposed by Charles Kane and a team at the University of Pennsylvania in 2005. In 2011, the Dr Hasan detected this fast electron-flow in the interior of a material made from combining several elements - bismuth, pictured, thallium, sulfur and selenium

These waves can weave, dodge and even move through barriers that would typically stop most electrons. 

These properties were theoretically proposed by Charles Kane and a team at the University of Pennsylvania from 2005 to 2007, but wasn't observed experimentally in solid materials until 2007.

In 2011, Dr Hasan group detected this fast electron-flow in the interior of a material made from combining several elements - bismuth, thallium, sulfur and selenium.

The term topological insulator is now quite well known, but the term insulator means there are no electrons flowing in the bulk of the material.

This new study shows that electrons are flowing in the bulk of the material, meaning cadmium arsenide is not an insulator but is still topological in nature, making it a completely new type of quantum matter.

The research was conducted by an international team of scientists from the U.S., Taiwan, Singapore, Germany and Sweden and published in two papers in the journal Nature Communications.

The materials were named after English quantum physicist and 1933 Nobel Prize winner Paul Dirac, pictured, who noted electrons could behave like light

This team demonstrated fast electrons can flow through crystals made from cadmium and arsenic, or cadmium arsenide, as well as elements bismuth and selenium.

During tests into cadmium arsenide, in particular, the electrons had an average velocity that was 10,000 times more than that of the previous bismuth-based materials identified by the group.

'This is a big deal,' Dr Hasan said.

'It means the electrons can flow quite easily in the material and many more exotic quantum effects can now be studied.

'That just wasn't possible in the past.'

These materials would be ideal for electronics that do calculations and transmit information.

The speeds achieved by these electrons have led to comparisons to another novel electronic material - graphene.

The semi-metals have the potential to be superior to graphene in some aspects, Dr Hasan said, because graphene is a single layer of atoms in which electrons can flow only in two dimensions.

Cadmium arsenide permits electrons to flow in three dimensions, for example.