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New faculty member leads research on semiconductor alloys

A multi-institutional team led by NREL discovered a way to create new alloys that could form the basis of next-generation semiconductors. The NREL team includes (left to right) Stephan Lany, Aaron Holder, Paul Ndione, and Andriy Zakutayev.

A multi-institutional team led by NREL, including new ChBE faculty member Aaron Holder (second from left), discovered a way to create new alloys that could form the basis of next-generation semiconductors. The NREL team includes (from left) Stephan Lany, Holder, Paul Ndione and Andriy Zakutayev. Photo courtesy NREL.

A multi-institutional team led by the U.S. Department of Energy's National Renewable Energy Laboratory discovered a way to create new alloys that could form the basis of next-generation semiconductors.

The team includes corresponding author Aaron Holder, who recently joined the CU Boulder Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering. Holder is a co-PI of the NREL-led Energy Frontiers Research Center, the Center for Next Generation Materials by Design, and will hold a joint appointment between NREL and CU.

Semiconductor alloys already exist  often made from a combination of materials with similar atomic arrangements but until now, researchers believed it was unrealistic to make alloys of certain constituents.

"Maybe in the past scientists looked at two materials and said I can't mix those two. What we're saying is think again," Holder said. Holder is corresponding author of a new paper in Science Advances. "There is a way to do it."

Read the entire story from NREL.