+44 (0)24 7671 8970
More publications     •     Advertise with us     •     Contact us
 
Loading...
{megaLeaderboard}
{normalLeaderboard}
News Article

Transparent nanoscale semiconductor has highest ever conductivity

News
Minnesota team says wide bandgap BaSnO3 film is ideal material for improving electronics and solar cells


A team of researchers, led by the University of Minnesota, has discovered a new nanoscale thin film material with the highest-ever conductivity in its class. They say the new material could lead to smaller, faster, and more powerful electronics, as well as more efficient solar cells.

The discovery is reported in Nature Communications -  'Wide Bandgap BaSnO3 Films with Room Temperature Conductivity Exceeding 104 Scm-1' 

According to the researchers, what makes this new material unique is a combination of high conductivity and wide bandgap, which means light can easily pass through making it optically transparent. In most cases, materials with wide bandgap have either low conductivity or poor transparency.

"The high conductivity and wide bandgap make this an ideal material for making optically transparent conducting films which could be used in a wide variety of electronic devices, including high power electronics, electronic displays, touchscreens and even solar cells in which light needs to pass through the device," said Bharat Jalan, a University of Minnesota chemical engineering and materials science professor and the lead researcher on the study.

Most transparent conductors in today's electronics use indium, but the price of indium has gone up tremendously in the past few years adding to the cost of display technology. 

In this study, the researchers developed their transparent conducting thin film using a novel synthesis method, in which they grew a BaSnO3 thin film (barium stannate), but replaced elemental tin source with a chemical precursor of tin.

The chemical precursor of tin has properties that enhanced the chemical reactivity and greatly improved the metal oxide formation process. Both barium and tin are significantly cheaper than indium and are abundantly available.

"We were quite surprised at how well this unconventional approach worked the very first time we used the tin chemical precursor," said University of Minnesota chemical engineering and materials science graduate student Abhinav Prakash, the first author of the paper. "It was a big risk, but it was quite a big breakthrough for us."

Jalan and Prakash said this new process allowed them to create this material with unprecedented control over thickness, composition, and defect concentration and that this process should be highly suitable for a number of other material systems where the element is hard to oxidise. The new process is also reproducible and scalable.

They further added that it was the structurally superior quality with improved defect concentration that allowed them to discover high conductivity in the material. They said the next step is to continue to reduce the defects at the atomic scale.

"Even though this material has the highest conductivity within the same materials class, there is much room for improvement in addition, to the outstanding potential for discovering new physics if we decrease the defects. That's our next goal," Jalan said.

The research was funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF), Air Force Office of Scientific Research (AFOSR), and U.S. Department of Energy.

In addition to Jalan and Prakash, the research team included Peng Xu, University of Minnesota chemical engineering and materials science graduate student; Cynthia S. Lo, Washington University assistant professor; Alireza Faghaninia, former graduate student at Washington University; Sudhanshu Shukla, researcher at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and Nanyang Technological University; and Joel W. Ager III, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and University of California Berkeley adjunct professor

Schletter Group: 48 MWp Project in Italy
ENCAVIS Acquires Two More Solar Parks In Spain and Surpasses The Planned Expansion
Maximum profitability with KACO advanced technology for complex solar roofs
Enviromena wins contract to re-power three major solar farms ahead of the summer energy peak
New Swansea University Collaboration to Support Sustainable, Locally Manufactured Solar PV
New Swansea University Collaboration to Support Sustainable, Locally Manufactured Solar PV
Next2Sun Builds World's Largest Vertical PV Plant at Frankfurt Airport
DNV Publishes Bankability Study of Solcast Satellite Irradiance Data
Steel company SSAB switches to fossil-free energy in Italy with PV solution from Solnet
janom Investments enters the Croatian solar energy industry by investing in a 30 MW power plant project
Trina Solar Vertex S+ 505W n-type dual-glass modules enter mass production
BayWa r.e. and 3E sign partnership agreement for monitoring & analytics of global PV portfolio
Accelerating Spain's Energy Transformation: LONGi to supply Naturgy with 1 million modules in new deal
NTR announces corporate PPA with Almac Group to buy energy from Murley Wind Farm, Northern Ireland
Oxford PV sets new solar panel efficiency world record
Order Intake for the Construction of Wind Turbines in Turkey
Trilantic Europe acquires stake in AEROCOMPACT Group
Octopus Energy makes solar farm debut in Germany
Austria-based KOGA Energy, a solar EPC solutions provider, has kicked off.
Exus to acquire 625MW New Mexico solar portfolio
Capcora Accompanies SUSI Partners In Raising Senior Debt For a Polish Renewables Portfolio
Qualitas Energy acquires a 96 MW wind energy project pipeline in Germany
Nordex Group receives orders from the UK for approx. 150 MW
Trina Solar gains EPD certification from UL Solutions and EPDItaly for industry leading modules
Mandarin Oriental Hyde Park, London instals innovative solar tech to decarbonise heating
Efficiency First: The Road to Electrification
SCHLETTER Supplies Austria's Largest PV Roof System
E.ON partners with UK renewable heat innovator Naked Energy
Sonnedix signs innovative EUR500 million loan facility to finance construction of its renewable electricity pipeline in Europe and UK
Construction begins on Glennmont and Ørsted’s Borkum Riffgrund 3 offshore wind farm in Germany
ABB shores up reliable power supply at Southeast Asia’s largest floating solar plant
Sonnedix starts construction of 300MW UK solar PV portfolio

×
Search the news archive

To close this popup you can press escape or click the close icon.
Logo
×
Logo
×
Register - Step 1

You may choose to subscribe to the Solar + Power Magazine, the Solar + Power Newsletter, or both. You may also request additional information if required, before submitting your application.


Please subscribe me to:

 

You chose the industry type of "Other"

Please enter the industry that you work in:
Please enter the industry that you work in: