1,183 research outputs found
Crystal Structure and Chemistry of Topological Insulators
Topological surface states, a new kind of electronic state of matter, have
recently been observed on the cleaved surfaces of crystals of a handful of
small band gap semiconductors. The underlying chemical factors that enable
these states are crystal symmetry, the presence of strong spin orbit coupling,
and an inversion of the energies of the bulk electronic states that normally
contribute to the valence and conduction bands. The goals of this review are to
briefly introduce the physics of topological insulators to a chemical audience
and to describe the chemistry, defect chemistry, and crystal structures of the
compounds in this emergent field.Comment: Submitted to Journal of Materials Chemistry, 47 double spaced pages,
9 figure
Large Magnetoresistance in Compensated Semimetals TaAs and NbAs
We report large magnetoresistance (MR) at low temperatures in
single-crystalline nonmagnetic compounds TaAs and NbAs. Both compounds
exhibit parabolic-field-dependent MR larger than in a magnetic
field of 9 Tesla at 2 K. The MR starts to deviate from parabolic dependence
above 10 T and intends to be saturated in 45 T for TaAs at 4.2 K. The Hall
resistance measurements and band structural calculations reveal their
compensated semimetal characteristics. The large MR at low temperatures is
ascribed to a resonance effect of the balanced electrons and holes with large
mobilities. We also discuss the relation of the MR and samples' quality for
TaAs and other semimetals. We found that the magnitudes of MR are strongly
dependent on the samples' quality for different compounds.Comment: 26 pages, 11 figures, 2 table
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Bandgap engineering in semiconductor alloy nanomaterials with widely tunable compositions
Over the past decade, tremendous progress has been achieved in the development of nanoscale semiconductor materials with a wide range of bandgaps by alloying different individual semiconductors. These materials include traditional II-VI and III-V semiconductors and their alloys, inorganic and hybrid perovskites, and the newly emerging 2D materials. One important common feature of these materials is that their nanoscale dimensions result in a large tolerance to lattice mismatches within a monolithic structure of varying composition or between the substrate and target material, which enables us to achieve almost arbitrary control of the variation of the alloy composition. As a result, the bandgaps of these alloys can be widely tuned without the detrimental defects that are often unavoidable in bulk materials, which have a much more limited tolerance to lattice mismatches. This class of nanomaterials could have a far-reaching impact on a wide range of photonic applications, including tunable lasers, solid-state lighting, artificial photosynthesis and new solar cells
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