By inventing the transistor 21 years ago, researchers at the Bell Telephone Laboratories paved the way for most of the sophisticated electronic marvels of the 1960smost notably the miniaturized, high-speed computer. Now they may have done it again. A versatile new device conjured up by the wizards at Bell may eventually make current computers as old-fashioned as the abacus.
For several years, Bell scientists have been experimenting with thin wafers of crystalline materials known as orthoferrites, which are compounds of iron oxides and such rare-earth minerals as ytterbium, thulium and samarium-terbium. They found that when a strong enough magnetic field is...
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