Scientists at the University of Twente have developed a way to create highly ordered semiconductor material at room temperature. This UT research was published today in Nature Synthesis. This breakthrough could make optoelectronics more efficient by controlling the crystal structure and reducing the number of defects at the nanoscale.
The team focused on a material called metal halide perovskites, known for its ability to absorb sunlight efficiently and its use in devices like LEDs, semiconductors and solar cells. Making these materials with one single orientation (or in other words with highly ordered grains) has been a challenge. Up to date, this has mainly been used in the polycrystalline form.
In other words, in a non-ordered fashion. This can limit their use in applications, such as LEDs, where high order and low density of defects are needed. Normally, these highly ordered semiconductors require high processing temperatures. But in this new process, the UT researchers skip the heat and build up the material layer by layer using a pulsed laser.
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