Researchers reveal a new pathway for designing optical materials using the degree of atomic disorder. The researchers anticipate developing crystals that enable advanced infrared imaging in low light conditions, or to enhance medical imaging devices.
Watch out, Marie Kondo. While we usually think of disorder as a bad thing, a team of materials science researchers led by Rohan Mishra, from Washington University in St. Louis, and Jayakanth Ravichandran, from the University of Southern California, have revealed that -- when it comes to certain crystals -- a little structural disorder might have big impacts on useful optical properties.
"We've been working on semiconductor materials for years, gradually moving down the periodic table, looking for materials that behave well but also do interesting or unexpected things," said Ravichandran, the Philip and Cayley MacDonald Endowed Early Career Chair and associate professor in the Viterbi School of Engineering at USC.
"Picometer-scale displacements are so tiny that you'll only find them if you're specifically looking for them," Ravichandran added.
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