Dark matter accounts for 85% of the matter in the universe, but scientists still do not know what it is made of. A study, published in Physical Review Letters, by Rice University researchers proposes a detector design that could help search for axions, hypothetical particles that many physicists think could make up dark matter.

The proposed detector would rely on a class of semiconductor materials whose response changes when their orientation shifts within a magnetic field. This material response makes it easier to tune the detector, allowing researchers to probe a range of axion masses that have remained difficult to explore with existing technologies.

“We are proposing a well-studied material from condensed matter physics for a new application—axion detection,” said Jaanita Mehrani, a doctoral student in Rice’s Applied Physics Graduate Program who is the first author on the study. “What’s different about this material is that it doesn’t have to use complex mechanical tuning mechanisms, it simply tunes with the magnetic field.”