Using laser pulses, scientists have transformed glass into a semiconductor that can harvest energy from light.
The technology is not yet efficient enough for commercial use, but the process could be scaled up for applications requiring photoconductive materials, says Yves Bellouard, a microengineer and head of the Galatea lab at the Ecole Polytechnique F茅d茅rale de Lausanne (EPFL) in Switzerland.
鈥淭he intriguing facet here is the ability to add functionality into a material without adding any material,鈥� Bellouard says. Currently, functionalization of materials usually involves doping, or adding additional material, as in semiconductor fabrication. In the new method, near-infrared femtosecond laser pulses rearrange the molecules in tellurite glass, triggering the formation of photoconductive trigonal tellurium nanocrystals with photoconductive properties...
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