Although electrons cannot be detected in materials, they play an important role in determining the properties of materials.
Dmytro Radzinkov/Alamy
“Dark” electrons in solid-state materials could help us understand more about the behavior of high-temperature superconductors and solve other mysteries in materials science.
Most of the properties of matter, such as how electrically conductive a material is or how light it reflects, are determined by the movement of electrons. One way to determine these properties is through spectroscopy, which involves shining light onto a material and analyzing the spectrum of the reflected light to reveal which frequencies have been absorbed or reflected.
