Recently, a number of inventions and devices that we have only known from science fiction movies have been realized. Researchers from the University of California at Berkeley have managed to assemble a device that shines similarly to LEDs. However, its specialty is completely minithin, making it virtually invisible when turned off.
The device is made of a semiconductor monolayer, only three atoms thin. The practical use of the latest invention could consist mainly in the installation of "invisible" displays on various surfaces. When the display is off, it is completely transparent and therefore practically invisible.
"The materials used are so thin and flexible that the resulting device can be completely transparent and can adapt to curved surfaces," explains Der-Hsien Lien from the University of Berkeley. Der-Hsien Lien co-developed the device with his colleagues Matin Amani and Sujay Desai from the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science. The relevant study was published on March 26 of this year in Nature Communications..
But the history of the device dates back to 2015, when scientists in the laboratories of the University of Berkeley proved that semiconductor monolayers are capable of producing bright light, but certain obstacles still needed to be overcome.
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Current commercially used LEDs consist of semiconductor materials and emit light due to the contact of positive and negative electrical charges. It is therefore normally necessary to use two contacts in the light-producing device. But their production process is all the more complicated, the thinner the resulting device is to be.
But scientists at the University of Berkeley managed to simplify this process - they invented a device that requires a single contact to produce light. They achieved the desired result by placing a semiconductor monolayer on the insulator and placing one of the electrodes under the insulator and the other directly on the semiconductor layer. The functionality of the mentioned mechanism was demonstrated for four different materials.
The Berkeley project is still in its infancy. The scientists working on it have a number of other necessary researches and tests ahead of them, the result of which should be, among other things, to at least bring the efficiency of the device, which is now around 1%, closer to the efficiency of ordinary LEDs (25-30%).
Although the device is still in the concept stage, it is already clear that the possibilities of its use will be really wide, from independent wall displays to the implementation of the device on other electronic devices. Scientists are not even opposed to the possibility of using it directly on human skin.
"There is still a lot of work ahead of us and many challenges that need to be overcome in order to bring this technological progress to fruition."one"However, even this step is a huge step forward," says Ali Javey, a professor of electrical engineering and computer science at Berkeley.
Source: BerkeleyNews
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