Sapphire-grown semiconductor film sets bandgap record

Semiconductors with wider bandgaps could pave the way for smaller, more efficient electronics that can handle far higher voltages, but the wider this gap becomes, the harder it is to control how well a material conducts electricity. Now, a team led by Darrell Schlom at Cornell University has shown that adding silicon to thin films of aluminum gallium oxide can keep this control intact at bandgaps wider than any semiconductor before it. Their research has been published in Nature.