Indian scientists discover new material that converts infrared light to renewable energy
Could find increasing use in solar and thermal energy harvesting; Source – GoI
Team, Jawaharlal Nehru Centre for Advanced Scientific Research (JNCASR)
Scientists at Bengaluru’s Jawaharlal Nehru Centre for Advanced Scientific Research (JNCASR), an autonomous institute of the Department of Science and Technology (DST), have discovered a new material — single-crystalline scandium nitride (ScN) — that can emit, detect, and modulate infrared light with high efficiency. This new material could find significant use in harvesting solar and thermal energy, and in optical communication devices, such as by the army.
According to a government statement, K. C. Maurya and co-workers used polariton (a quasi-particle) excitations that occur in tailored materials when light couples with either the collective free electron oscillations or polar lattice vibrations. They carefully controlled material properties to excite polaritons and achieve strong light-matter interactions in ScN using infrared light.
ScN is compatible with modern complementary-metal-oxide-semiconductor (CMOS) or Si-chip technology and, could be easily integrated for on-chip optical communication devices, said the statement.
Dr. Bivas Saha, Assistant Professor at JNCASR, said, “From electronics-to-healthcare, defense and security-to-energy technologies, there is a great demand for infrared sources, emitters and sensors. Our work on infrared polaritons in scandium nitride will enable its applications in many such devices.”
The Centre for Nano Science and Engineering from the Indian Institute of Science (IISc) and the University of Sydney also participated in this study.
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