A University of Wollongong-led team has combined two traditional semiconductor doping methods to achieve new efficiencies in the topological insulator bismuth-selenide (Bi 2 Se 3), Two doping elements ...

Materials that convert heat into electricity find use in temperature-controlled car seats and in power generators on spacecraft. If these materials, called thermoelectrics, converted heat more ...

The research, led by Penn State University and Cornell University physicists, studies "spin torque" in devices that combine a standard magnetic material with a novel material known as a "topological ...

For the hottest thing in condensed-matter physics, check out the local liquor store. Hidden inside a device for chilling wine is the unusual compound called bismuth telluride. For physicists, bismuth ...

Spin orbits: spiralling electrons on the surface of bismuth selenide produce circularly-polarized light. (Courtesy: iStock/VikaSuh) The first ever observations of chiral surface excitons have been ...

Device Fabrication: Growing uniform bismuth-based topological insulators at well-defined spots might be a step towards spin-based electronics Engineers find a few traits of topological insulator ...

One of science’s newest wonder materials may find its way into computers. A study published in the July 24 Nature reveals that electrons coursing through the materials known as topological insulators ...

The thermoelectric effect has been known since 1821: with certain combinations of materials, a temperature difference generates an electric current. If one end of the sample is heated, for example ...

Tin selenide might considerably exceed the efficiency of current record holding thermoelectric materials made of bismuth telluride. However, it was thought its efficiency increased dramatically only ...

Scientists have induced high temperature superconductivity in a toplogical insulator, an important step on the road to fault-tolerant quantum computing. Reliable quantum computing would make it ...

An international group of physicists has demonstrated an electron spin-splitting effect in a semiconductor that is far larger than has ever been seen before. The large Rashba effect – the phenomenon ...

Measurements at the BESSY II and PETRA IV synchrotron sources show that tin selenide can also be utilized as a thermoelectric material at room temperature -- so long as high pressure is applied. Tin ...