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Optical materials

Inspired by strain

Nature Photonics volume 6, pages 804–806 (2012)Cite this article

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Researchers at Peking University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology propose the use of strain engineering to create a broadband solar 'funnel' in an atomically thin sheet of MoS2.

Strain engineering is the process of tuning a material's electronic properties by altering its structural or mechanical properties. This technique is widely used throughout the semiconductor industry as a means of enhancing the mobility of electrons in silicon by depositing strained silicon nitride layers on top of transistor channels. The understanding and optimization of strain-engineered materials is also a major milestone in the international technology roadmap for semiconductors1. However, the low maximum strains of brittle bulk crystalline materials limit the extent to which their electronic properties can be changed by mechanical means. Bulk silicon, for example, can be strained only 1.2% before breaking, although silicon nanowires with breaking strains of nearly 5% have recently been reported.

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Figure 1: Solar funnel based on a strained monolayer of MoS2.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Arend van der Zande and James Hone are at the Department of Mechanical Engineering and Energy Frontier Research Center, Columbia University, 500 West 120th Street, New York, USA,

    Arend van der Zande & James Hone

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  1. Arend van der Zande
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  2. James Hone
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Correspondence to James Hone.

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van der Zande, A., Hone, J. Inspired by strain. Nature Photon 6, 804–806 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1038/nphoton.2012.303

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