The widespread use of thermoelectric technology is constrained by a relatively low conversion efficiency of the bulk alloys, which is evaluated in terms of a dimensionless figure of merit (zT). ThezTof bulk alloys can be improved by reducing lattice thermal conductivity through grain boundary and point-defect scattering, which target low- and high-frequency phonons. Dense dislocation arrays formed at low-energy grain boundaries by liquid-phase compaction in Bi0.5Sb1.5Te3(bismuth antimony telluride) effectively scatter midfrequency phonons, leading to a substantially lower lattice thermal conductivity. Full-spectrum phonon scattering with minimal charge-carrier scattering dramatically improved thezTto 1.86 ± 0.15 at 320 kelvin (K). Further, a thermoelectric cooler confirmed the performance with a maximum temperature difference of 81 K, which is much higher than current commercial Peltier cooling devices.

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Although two-dimensional monolayer transition-metal dichalcogenides reveal numerous unique features that are inaccessible in bulk materials, their intrinsic properties are often obscured by environmental effects. Among them, work function, which is the energy required to extract an electron from a material to vacuum, is one critical parameter in electronic/optoelectronic devices. Here, we report a large work function modulation in MoS2 via ambient gases. The work function was measured by an in situ Kelvin probe technique and further confirmed by ultraviolet photoemission spectroscopy and theoretical calculations. A measured work function of 4.04 eV in vacuum was converted to 4.47 eV with O2 exposure, which is comparable with a large variation in graphene. The homojunction diode by partially passivating a transistor reveals an ideal junction with an ideality factor of almost one and perfect electrical reversibility. The estimated depletion width obtained from photocurrent mapping was ∼200 nm, which is much narrower than bulk semiconductors.

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In this paper, the Lorentz transformation of entangled Bell states seen by a moving observer is studied. The calculated Bell observable for 4 joint measurements turns out to give a universal value,, whereâ,b are the relativistic spin observables derived from the Pauli-Lubanski pseudo vector and β = v c . We found that the degree of violation of the Bell's inequality is decreasing with increasing velocity of the observer and the Bell's inequality is satisfied in the ultra-relativistic limit where the boost speed reaches the speed of light.

We report metal-free synthesis of high-density single-crystal elementary semiconductor nanowires with tunable electrical conductivities and systematic diameter control with narrow size distributions. Single-crystal silicon and germanium nanowires were synthesized by nucleation on nanocrystalline seeds and subsequent one-dimensional anisotropic growth without using external catalyst. Systematic control of the diameters with tight distribution and tunable doping concentration were realized by adjusting the growth conditions, such as growth temperature and ratio of precursor partial pressures. We also demonstrated both n-type and ambipolar field effect transistors using our undoped and phosphorus-doped metal-free silicon nanowires, respectively. This growth approach offers a method to eliminate potential metal catalyst contamination and thus could serve as an important point for further developing nanowire nanoelectronic devices for applications.

The rectifying Schottky characteristics of the metal-semiconductor junction with high contact resistance have been a serious issue in modern electronic devices. Herein, we demonstrated the conversion of the Schottky nature of the Ni-Si junction, one of the most commonly used metal-semiconductor junctions, into an Ohmic contact with low contact resistance by inserting a single layer of graphene. The contact resistance achieved from the junction incorporating graphene was about 10(-8) ~ 10(-9) Ω cm(2) at a Si doping concentration of 10(17) cm(-3).

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