Semiconductors are key to the development of almost every electronic device. However, forming semiconductor materials from sand consumes a significant amount of heat-intensive energy, as it can only be done at extremely high temperatures.

In order to make this process more energy-efficient, researchers from Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) and UC Berkeley have developed ‘multielement ink’, the first ‘high-entropy’ semiconductor that can be processed at low or room temperature. 

“The traditional way of making semiconductor devices is energy-intensive and one of the major sources of carbon emissions,” said Peidong Yang, the senior author on the study. “Our new method of making semiconductors could pave the way for a more sustainable semiconductor industry.”

The new ink takes advantage of two types of semiconducting materials: hard alloys made of high-entropy semiconductors, and a soft, flexible material made of crystalline halide perovskites.

For a long time, researchers have wanted to use high-entropy materials to develop semiconducting materials that self-assemble with minimal energy inputs, but they faced significant knowledge gaps. 

“High-entropy semiconductors have not been studied to nearly the same extent. Our work could help to significantly fill in that gap of understanding,” said Yuxin Jiang, co-first author. 

Conventional high-entropy alloy materials require far less energy than silicon to process for manufacturing but they still require high temperatures. To overcome this hurdle, Yang decided to use halide perovskites.

Perovskites are easily processed from solution at low temperature – from room temperature to around 300ºF (149ºC). These lower processing temperatures could one day dramatically reduce energy costs for semiconductor manufacturers.

Yang and his team took advantage of this lower energy requirement to synthesise high-entropy halide persovskite single crystals from a solution under room temperature or low-temperature (80ºC) conditions. 

The results were very successful. The team was able to use this technique to produce single-crystal semiconductors within hours of mixing a solution and precipitating – far faster than conventional semiconductor fabrication techniques.

“Intuitively, making these semiconductors is like stacking octahedral-shaped molecular LEGOs into larger octahedral single crystals,” said Yang.

“Imagining each of these individual molecular LEGOs will emit at different wavelengths, one can in principle design a semiconductor material that would emit an arbitrary colour by selecting different molecular octahedral LEGOs.”

The researchers plan to continue designing sustainable semiconductor materials for solid-state lighting and display applications.

The breakthrough was reported in the journal Nature.

Semiconductors are key to the development of almost every electronic device. However, forming semiconductor materials from sand consumes a significant amount of heat-intensive energy, as it can only be done at extremely high temperatures.

In order to make this process more energy-efficient, researchers from Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) and UC Berkeley have developed ‘multielement ink’, the first ‘high-entropy’ semiconductor that can be processed at low or room temperature. 

“The traditional way of making semiconductor devices is energy-intensive and one of the major sources of carbon emissions,” said Peidong Yang, the senior author on the study. “Our new method of making semiconductors could pave the way for a more sustainable semiconductor industry.”

The new ink takes advantage of two types of semiconducting materials: hard alloys made of high-entropy semiconductors, and a soft, flexible material made of crystalline halide perovskites.

For a long time, researchers have wanted to use high-entropy materials to develop semiconducting materials that self-assemble with minimal energy inputs, but they faced significant knowledge gaps. 

“High-entropy semiconductors have not been studied to nearly the same extent. Our work could help to significantly fill in that gap of understanding,” said Yuxin Jiang, co-first author. 

Conventional high-entropy alloy materials require far less energy than silicon to process for manufacturing but they still require high temperatures. To overcome this hurdle, Yang decided to use halide perovskites.

Perovskites are easily processed from solution at low temperature – from room temperature to around 300ºF (149ºC). These lower processing temperatures could one day dramatically reduce energy costs for semiconductor manufacturers.

Yang and his team took advantage of this lower energy requirement to synthesise high-entropy halide persovskite single crystals from a solution under room temperature or low-temperature (80ºC) conditions. 

The results were very successful. The team was able to use this technique to produce single-crystal semiconductors within hours of mixing a solution and precipitating – far faster than conventional semiconductor fabrication techniques.

“Intuitively, making these semiconductors is like stacking octahedral-shaped molecular LEGOs into larger octahedral single crystals,” said Yang.

“Imagining each of these individual molecular LEGOs will emit at different wavelengths, one can in principle design a semiconductor material that would emit an arbitrary colour by selecting different molecular octahedral LEGOs.”

The researchers plan to continue designing sustainable semiconductor materials for solid-state lighting and display applications.

The breakthrough was reported in the journal Nature.