‘Incomprehensible’ Birth Of Supercrystal Explained

‘Incomprehensible’ birth of supercrystal explained

Two years ago, a research team led by Utrecht University published an article in Science explaining how they had created a material with unique and extremely interesting electronic characteristics. In this 'supercrystal’, the electrons move almost with the speed of photons, and the electric current can be switched on and off. This makes it ideal for ultra-fast electronics. But at the time, the researchers were at a loss to explain how this 'supercrystal’ obtained its unique structure. Now they have unravelled the mystery, and it appears to involve a completely different mechanism for crystal formation. This is an important insight for research into new materials with unique electronic characteristics. The results of their research were published online in Nature Materials.

The 'supercrystal’ develops when tiny nanocrystals form a perfectly ordered surface one layer thick. In this super-matrix, the structure of the atoms – A, B, A, B – precisely follows that of the nanocrystals itself. “But how such a neatly ordered super-matrix could be born from all of those nanocrystals was incomprehensible to us,” says Prof. Daniël Vanmaekelbergh from Utrecht University. “Now that we have insight into how the matrix is formed, we can conduct much more focused research into how we can make the structures that we would like to have.”

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