Huicong Plastic Network News: A research team led by scientists from the University of Minnesota has discovered a new type of nanofilm material with the highest conductivity. The related paper was published in Nature Communications, and the study also suggests that this new material may lead to the development of smaller, faster, and more powerful electronic products, as well as more efficient solar cells.
According to relevant researchers, the uniqueness of this new material is not only due to its high conductivity, but also because it has a wide bandgap, which makes it easy for light to pass through and exhibits optical transparency. In most cases, materials with wide bandgap typically have low conductivity and poor transparency.
The high conductivity and wide bandgap make it an ideal material for manufacturing optically transparent conductive films, which can be used in various electronic devices, including high-power electronic devices, electronic displays, touch screens, and solar cells that require light to pass through devices, "explained Bharat Jalan, a professor of chemical engineering and materials science at the University of Minnesota and the chief researcher of the research.
Currently, most electronic products use indium as a chemical element in their transparent conductors. Due to the widespread rise in indium prices over the past two decades, the cost of existing display technologies has increased. Therefore, researchers have made tremendous efforts to find alternative materials with the same or even better performance as indium based transparent conductors.
In this study, researchers managed to find a solution. They developed a new transparent conductive thin film using a novel synthesis method, in which they grew BaSnO3 thin films (a combination of barium, tin, and oxygen called barium stannate) instead of using tin as a chemical precursor. This chemical precursor has unique free radical properties, which can enhance chemical reactivity and greatly improve the formation process of the metal oxide. Barium and tin are much cheaper than indium and are very abundant.
Abhinav Prakash, a graduate student in Chemical Engineering and Materials Science at the University of Minnesota, said, "We were very surprised that tin chemical precursors played such an important role in the process of using them for the first time. It was a big adventure, but for us, it was a big breakthrough
Jalan and Prakash stated that this new process enables them to have unprecedented control over thickness, composition, and defect concentration, which can be used to create materials and is highly suitable for many other material systems where elements are difficult to oxidize. The new process is also replicable and scalable.
They further added that the superior quality of the material structure increased the defect concentration, allowing them to discover its high conductivity. The next step is to continue reducing atomic scale defects.
Although this material has the highest conductivity in the same material category, besides reducing defects, we also found that it has the potential for new physics and has great room for improvement, so this is our next goal, "Jalan said.