Scientists create "supercrystal" for faster, more efficient lasers

MELBOURNE, Feb. 6 (Xinhua) -- Scientists in Australia and China have developed a new "supercrystal" material that could lead to faster, smaller and more energy-efficient lasers and other light-based technologies.

The team has developed a new type of perovskite material arranged into an ordered "supercrystal," where tiny packets of energy called excitons work together rather than individually, allowing the material to amplify light far more efficiently, said a statement from Australia's Monash University on Friday.

Published in Laser & Photonics Reviews with China's Chongqing Normal University, the study points to applications in communications, sensing and computing, improving devices that rely on light such as autonomous vehicle sensors, medical imaging or electronics.

"What's exciting here is that we're not changing the material itself, but how it's organized," said corresponding author Professor Jacek Jasieniak at Monash Materials Science and Engineering.

"By assembling nanocrystals into an ordered supercrystal, the excitations created by light can cooperate rather than compete, which allows light to be amplified much more efficiently," Jasieniak said.

Lead researcher Manoj Sharma from Monash University said their approach revealed new possibilities in nanocrystal assemblies.

"By assembling nanocrystals into a highly ordered supercrystal, we show that optical gain is no longer limited by single-particle biexcitons, which are inefficient and prone to energy losses, but instead arises from collective excitonic interactions across the whole structure," Sharma said.

Perovskites have attracted growing interest for solar cells, LEDs, lasers and other optoelectronic devices due to their efficiency and ease of fabrication, researchers said.

The work shows that engineering a material's structure, not just its chemistry, can greatly boost performance and open new applications. Enditem