Researchers from Kyoto University have discovered a new technique that could dramatically improve the efficiency of some semiconductors. They took gallium arsenide, and blasted it with a terahertz range electric field pulse for just a picosecond, which lead to a 1,000-fold increase in exciton density. An exciton is a pair of an electron and a positively charged area it came from, which are attracted to each other and recombine to luminesce. They’re how we get light out of LEDs and other applications, and this new technique could make them dramatically more efficient. More »
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Hitting semiconductors with a superfast electric pulse massively increases their efficiency [Materials Science]