For the first time there was a negative charge exactly equal to 25 percent of that unit. Research in Nature magazine.

Since the electricity comes from the transport of electrons, it is logical to expect that the smallest load that can be transported is equal to the charge of a single electron. Under specific conditions, it is possible to observe portions of this fundamental unit. Even in these conditions, however, there have been observed only odd fractions of charge: third, fifth, seventh. In the last issue of Nature it was published the existence of a quasi-particle with a charge corresponding exactly a quarter of that of an electron.

In particular, these unique elementary particles, which have been precisely called "quasi-particles" to their particular nature, are formed when electrons are confined in a two-dimensional system, which forces them to interact strongly with each other. It is known that when a flow of electrons is confined in a two-dimensional plan of a semiconductor and it is applied simultaneously in a strong magnetic field perpendicular to this plane, the electrons have unusual quantum properties. In a research just published in Nature, in an electron gas, two-dimensional and ultra-pure, were detected within the fluid vortexes charges carrying exactly one quarter of the charge of an electron.