A discovery by two scientists at the Energy Department’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) could aid the development of next-generation semiconductor devices.
The researchers, Kwangwook Park and Kirstin Alberi, experimented with integrating two dissimilar semiconductors into a heterostructure by using light to modify the interface between them. Typically, the semiconductor materials used in electronic devices are chosen based on such factors as having a similar crystal structure, lattice constant, and thermal expansion coefficients. The close match creates a flawless interface between layers and results in a high-performance device. The ability to use different classes of semiconductors could create additional possibilities for designing new, highly efficient devices, but only if the interfaces between them can be formed properly.
