Investigating SnIP, the first atomic‐scale double helical semiconductor
07 Jan 2020
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Electronic devices demand ever-increasing efficiency, flexibility, and stability; driving the development of new semiconductors. The first atomic‐scale double helical semiconductor, SnIP, offers exceptional electronic properties, with potential applications in energy conversion and water splitting that could revolutionise the hydrogen economy.

​In work published in Advanced Functional Materials, an international team of researchers performed high-resolution inelastic neutron scattering measurements on TOSCA to investigate the physical properties of pure SnIP, and SnIP-like systems with differing chemical composition.

They formed core-shell particles of SnIP and C3N4, which might be used in energy conversion applications. The SnIP@C3N4 system showed both polymer-like behaviour, and the semiconducting behaviour of SnIP. Their results demonstrate the potential of a double helical SnIP as a defined one-dimensional material for semiconductor applications, and that tube-like or 1D semiconductors could offer considerable promise as a new class of flexible semiconductors.

Related publication: “Flexible and ultrasoft inorganic 1D semiconductor and heterostructure systems based on SnIP" Advanced Functional Materials, 2019, Volume 29, Issue 18, 1900233, DOI: 10.1002/adfm.201900233

Authors: Claudia Ott, Felix Reiter, Maximilian Baumgartner, Markus Pielmeier, Anna Vogel, Patrick Walke, Stefan Burger, Michael Ehrenreich, Gregor Kieslich,  Dominik Daisenberger, Jeff Armstrong, Ujwal Kumar Thakur, Pawan Kumar, Shunda Chen, Davide Donadio, Lisa S. Walter, R. Thomas Weitz, Karthik Shankar, Tom Nilges

Instrument: TOSCA

Contact: de Laune, Rosie (STFC,RAL,ISIS)