World's thinnest LED is just three atoms thick
1 min read
University of Washington scientists have created the world's thinnest LED. The device, just three atoms thick, is both flexible and stackable, making a new class of handheld devices and light-driven computer chips feasible.
"These are 10,000 times smaller than the thickness of a human hair, yet the light they emit can be seen by standard measurement equipment," said graduate student Jason Ross. "This is a huge leap in miniaturisation, and because it's a semiconductor, you can do almost everything with it that is possible with existing, three dimensional silicon technologies."
To make the LEDs, the researchers placed sheets of tungsten diselenide, one of the thinnest known semiconductor materials, onto a silicon oxide base. The team was able to harvest single sheets of the material using adhesive tape, a technique originally pioneered in graphene production by scientists at the University of Manchester.
Looking ahead, lead researcher Xiaodong Xu believes the LEDs are small and powerful enough to be used in optical chips to shuttle data through a processor, or they could be stacked to make ultra thin, flexible displays.
"A promising solution is to replace the electrical interconnect with optical ones, which will maintain the high bandwidth but consume less energy," he said. "Our work makes it possible to make highly integrated and energy efficient devices in areas such as lighting, optical communications and nano lasers."
