Excitons from superfluid in certain 2-D combos

Date posted
Funding Agency
(Funded by the U.S. Army Research Office, the U.S. Department of Energy, the Department of Defense and the National Science Foundation)

Scientists at Rice University have identified a small set of two-dimensional compounds that, when placed together, allow excitons to form spontaneously. Excitons are quasiparticles that exist when electrons and holes briefly bind; they generally happen when energy from light or electricity boosts electrons and holes into a higher state. But in a few of the combinations predicted by the scientists, excitons were observed stabilizing at the materials' ground state. The discovery shows promise for electronic, spintronic, and quantum computing applications.