acoustic phonons tagged posts

A Superatomic Semiconductor sets a Speed Record

Lattice structures with a jumpy hare and a smooth-moving tortoise overlain.
The quick-but-slow hare, representing an electron, versus the slow-and-steady moving tortoise, representing acoustic exciton-polarons. Credit: Jack Tulyag

The search is on for better semiconductors. Writing in Science, a team of chemists at Columbia University led by Jack Tulyag, a PhD student working with chemistry professor Milan Delor, describes the fastest and most efficient semiconductor yet: a superatomic material called Re6Se8Cl2.

Semiconductors — most notably, silicon — underpin the computers, cellphones, and other electronic devices that power our daily lives, including the device on which you are reading this article. As ubiquitous as semiconductors have become, they come with limitations...

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