As global demand for high-performance electronics grows, innovation is crucial to meet technology’s evolving needs. In this effort, scientists at the University of Minnesota have created a material that allows electrons to move faster while maintaining transparency to visible and ultraviolet light.
Published in Science Advances, this research could be a major step in the field of semiconductors, which power nearly all modern electronics, from smartphones to medical devices.
Advancing Ultra-Wide Band Gap Materials
Improving ultra-wide band gap materials will enable the development of more robust and efficient electronics. The team focused on creating a new class of materials with an increased “band gap” that achieves higher transparency and conductivity.
The new material, a transparent conducting oxide, uses a thin-layered structure to enhance transparency without compromising electrical conductivity. The material demonstrated a combination of transparency and conductivity in the deep-ultraviolet spectrum.
“This breakthrough is a game-changer for transparent conducting materials, enabling us to overcome limitations that have held back deep ultra-violet device performance for years,” said Bharat Jalan, Shell Chair and Professor in the University of Minnesota’s Department of Chemical Engineering and Materials Science.
“Through detailed electron microscopy, we saw this material was clean with no obvious defects, revealing just how powerful oxide-based perovskites can be as semiconductors if defects are controlled,” said Professor Andre Mkhoyan, a senior author on the paper.
Read the full paper, “Deep-ultraviolet transparent conducting SrSnO3 via heterostructure design,” on the Science Advances website for more details.
