A team of physicists led by Kateřina (Dohnalová) Newell from the University of Amsterdam, have devised a new way to improve the optical properties of silicon nanocrystals, which under normal cicrumstances are quite poor. Their result was published in the journal Chemistry of Materials, with Dohnalová’s artwork being selected for the cover of the journal.
Silicon is the central building block of most electronic applications. While the electronic properties of this material are enormously useful, its optical, light-emitting properties are very poor. This is unfortunate, since the integration of electronic and optical elements (such as tiny lasers) on computer chips could make these chips even more versatile and useful.
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Image via University of Amsterdam.