Communications of the ACM
New Theory Could Lead to Energy Friendly Optoelectronics
Tuning a device using an electric bias gives microscopic control over the distribution of charged carriers in a bulk semiconductor.
Credit: Queen's University Belfast
Researchers at Queen's University Belfast and ETH Zurich, Switzerland, have created a new theoretical framework which could help physicists and device engineers design better optoelectronics, leading to less heat generation and power consumption in electronic devices which source, detect, and control light.
Elton Santos from the Atomistic Simulation Research Centre at Queen's, says the research enables scientists and engineers to quantify how transparent a 2-D material is to an electrostatic field. "In our paper we have developed a theoretical framework that predicts and quantifies the degree of 'transparency' up to the limit of one-atom-thick, 2-D materials, to an electrostatic field," he says.
"Imagine we can change the transparency of a material just using an electric bias, e.g. get darker or brighter at will. What kind of implications would this have, for instance, in mobile phone technologies?," Santos says. "This was the first question we asked ourselves. We realized that this would allow the microscopic control over the distribution of charged carriers in a bulk semiconductor (e.g. traditional Si microchips) in a nonlinear manner. This will help physicists and device engineers to design better quantum capacitors, an array of subatomic power storage components capable to keep high energy densities, for instance, in batteries, and vertical transistors, leading to next-generation optoelectronics with lower power consumption and dissipation of heat (cold devices), and better performance. In other words, smarter smart phones."
Santos says the theory could have important implications for future work in the area. "Our current model simply considers an interface formed between a layer of 2-D material and a bulk semiconductor. In principle, our approach can be readily extended to a stack of multiple 2-D materials, or namely, van der Waals heterostructures recently fabricated," he says. "This will allow us to design and predict the behavior of these cutting-edge devices prior to actual fabrication, which will significantly facilitate developments for a variety of applications. We will have an in silico search for the right combination of different 2-D crystals while reducing the need for expensive lab work and test trials."
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