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Goodbye, Silicon? On the way to new materials for electronics

Goodbye, Silicon? On the way to new materials for electronics

Technology News |
By Christoph Hammerschmidt



Today, silicon is primarily used in the manufacture of electronic components such as solar cells, LEDs or computer chips. High-purity silicon, which is very expensive to manufacture, is required for these applications. Scientists around group leader Dr. Enrique Cánovas from the Max Planck Institute for Polymer Research MPI-P (Bonn, Germany) have developed a new and cost-effective material, a so-called “metal-organic framework” (MOF), which has similar electrical properties to silicon.

The MOF, which was produced by a team of scientists led by Xinliang Feng in Dresden, is a highly crystalline solid body composed of iron ions bonded together by organic molecules. Because of this composition it is called a metal-organic network. In contrast to silicon, the material can be produced at room temperature. Parameters such as composition, properties and electronic properties can be easily controlled during the manufacturing process.

Networks manufactured in the past showed little or no electrical conductivity. This prevented their use in optoelectronic components, where sufficient electron mobility is required in the material when an electric field is applied. With the newly manufactured MOF, the researchers from Mainz have now shown that the electrons in the organic-based material behave similarly to those in silicon: When an external electric field – i.e. a voltage – is applied, the electrons can largely move freely in the material. In organically based materials, this behavior has hardly been observed so far.


The MPI-P scientists used ultrafast terahertz spectroscopy to characterize the unique properties of the produced network. These measurements showed that the mobility of electrons in this material is higher by a factor of 10,000 than that in insulator MOFs. This means that when an electric field is applied in the MOF, electrons can move over long distances, an effect that could be measured in 1000 µm long samples. Therefore, the new material paves the way for the use of metal-organic networks in optoelectronics.

Next, the researchers want to work on modifying and predicting the electronic properties of the material directly during production via the composition of the MOF. They have now published their research results in the renowned journal “Nature Materials”.

Original publication: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41563-018-0189-z

Website of Enrique Canovas: https://www.mpip-mainz.mpg.de/88633/Dr_Enrique_Canovas 

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