Many of the gadgets we use daily, like smartphones, tablets, and certain types of solar cells, rely on special materials that are both electrically conductive (meaning they allow electricity to flow through them) and optically transparent (meaning you can see through them).
Unfortunately, the most common material used for this, indium tin oxide (ITO), has a major flaw – it’s very brittle and can easily crack.
That’s why researchers have been hunting for alternatives. Recently, a team of scientists from the Indian Institute of Information Technology, Design and Manufacturing, led by Debolina Misra, has been studying a promising substitute named strontium vanadate (SrVO3).
What makes SrVO3 stand out is that it’s transparent, good at conducting electricity, heat-resistant, and it’s filled with a high number of electrons.
Strontium vanadate belongs to a group of materials known as correlated oxides.
These materials have some extraordinary properties, like magnetism, electricity, light-related, and pressure-related characteristics, which have made them a hot topic for research.
But what’s really special about SrVO3, and other materials like it, is that by stretching or squeezing them, you can change how their electrons interact with each other, leading to changes in their structure and how they function.
Earlier studies have shown that strain – the scientific term for stretching or squeezing a material – can affect how SrVO3 conducts electricity.
To understand precisely how this happens, Misra and her team used advanced simulations.
These simulations use basic rules of quantum mechanics, the branch of physics that deals with the tiniest particles like electrons, to predict how a material will behave.
What they found was quite fascinating. When SrVO3 was stretched (a process called tensile strain), it became less conductive, meaning it didn’t allow electricity to flow as easily. But, at the same time, it became more transparent, meaning you could see through it more clearly.
On the other hand, when SrVO3 was squeezed (compressive strain), it became a better conductor, allowing more electricity to flow through it, but it wasn’t as transparent.
These findings are exciting because they suggest that, by carefully controlling the amount of stretching or squeezing applied to SrVO3, we could control its properties to suit different devices and applications.
Imagine a world where our devices’ screens can be designed not to crack under pressure, or solar cells are made more efficient by optimizing their transparency. This research takes us one step closer to that reality.
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Source: Springer.
