Chemical Crystals
Credit: Calla McCulley
Semiconductors used in electronic devices perform well when the crystallinity of the thin film is just right. UT Austin chemistry graduate student Calla McCulley varies the conditions used to deposit thin films of promising semiconducting materials called perovskites. Perovskites are cheap and easy to produce, creating efficiencies in things like solar panels that weren’t possible when only silicon crystals were available. Here, two types of crystalline structures (amorphous needles and polycrystalline grains) come together to highlight how structural variations give an insight into semiconductor performance when implemented in various electrical applications at the Microelectronics Research Center at UT’s J.J. Pickle Research Campus.
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