Semiconductors are physical systems whose electrical conductivity lies between that of conductors and insulators and is strongly tunable by temperature, impurity concentration, and external fields. Their behavior is governed by band structure, featuring a finite band gap between valence and conduction bands that enables controlled carrier generation and recombination. Charge transport arises from electrons and holes, with densities modulated via doping, optical excitation, or electrostatic gating. Semiconductor systems support phenomena such as drift, diffusion, and quantum confinement, and they serve as the foundational medium for devices like diodes, transistors, and optoelectronic components through engineered heterostructures, junctions, and nanostructures.
Waves of light and sound interact to drive electronic and structural changes in a perovskite crystal. At the atomic scale, nothing is ever truly still. Materials that appear perfectly rigid and motionless to the naked eye ...
Condensed Matter
6 hours ago
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Researchers in Japan have created some of the world's smallest semiconducting nanotubes, structures 100,000 times thinner than a human hair. By growing molybdenum disulfide inside protective tubes of boron nitride, the researchers, ...
Nanomaterials
Jun 4, 2026
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UNSW Sydney engineers have riffed on the famous Schrödinger's cat analogy to demonstrate a more efficient way to eliminate errors in quantum computing.
Quantum Physics
Jun 3, 2026
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Australian researchers have trained lab-grown brain cells on a silicon computer chip to play the nineties shooter game "Doom" and say they are just scratching the surface of what the neurons could be capable of doing.
Biotechnology
May 31, 2026
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Topological phases are unusual states of matter that give rise to properties protected by a material's overall structure (i.e., "topology"), as opposed to microscopic details. These phases are of great interest for the development ...
Honeycombs are famous for their elegant design, but now they may have found a new application: quantum computing. To collect knowledge from subatomic particles, quantum computers require carefully designed materials capable ...
Condensed Matter
May 28, 2026
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Researchers have created a new theoretical framework that shows how memory-preserving "memtransistors" could overcome the intrinsic limits in efficiency faced by conventional semiconductor transistors, imposed by the laws ...
Researchers from Monash University have developed a breakthrough nanoscale circuit that can generate, direct, and read light-based information, all on a single chip.
Nanophysics
May 26, 2026
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Solar panels have become more efficient over the years, but even the best designs still lose a large fraction of the energy they absorb. Scientists around the world have been searching for ways to capture more energy from ...
Optics & Photonics
May 25, 2026
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Diamond is extremely valuable to science and technology not for its sparkle but for its extreme hardness, high thermal conductivity, transparency to a large fraction of the light spectrum, and a host of other exceptional ...
Superconductivity
May 22, 2026
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