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Think of the high-efficiency LED lights you are putting in your house, along with everything with a lit display or control circuit: cars, refrigerators, ovens, coffee makers and more. You would be hard-pressed to find a modern device that uses electricity that does not have semiconductor circuits in it. While most people have heard of silicon and Silicon Valley, they do not realize that this is just one example of a whole class of materials. But the workhorse silicon – used in all manner of computers and electronic gadgets – has its technical limits, particularly as engineers look to use electronic devices for producing or processing light. The search for new semiconductors is on. Where will these materials innovations come from? 

Shared February 8. 2017

By Credit: John C. Bean (University Of Virginia) And Tom Vandervelde (Tufts University) phys.org, News