#engineering #carbon
In between conducting graphite and insulating diamond elemental carbon offers vast opportunities for creating tunable bandgap semiconductors that can be applied to any application that you can think of. High voltage rectification, high efficiency solar energy conversion to electricity, solid state white light emitting diodes, transparent conducting oxides, metallic contacts, transistors, integrated photonic circuits ,nano antennas and more.
You are limited only by your imagination.
All carbon organic semiconductors offer some advantages which simply can't be matched by any material synthetic or natural.
1. Tunable band gap up to 5 ev
2. Ability to form molecular PN junctions with hetero atom bonding
3. Cheap raw materials that can be acquired from any general store. No supply chain issues.
4. Availability of precursors in all three forms of matter (solid,liquid and gas) to allow for different growth techniques.
5. Alternative way of synthesizing PN junctions by arrangement of pure carbon allotropes in an amorphous framework (glassy carbon)
6. Synthesis that requires no specialized equipment or costly machines. Instead it can be carried out using simple home built furnaces. This is possible due to rich chemistry of carbon which allows the material designer to chose the precursor according to the equipment available rather than choosing the equipment according to the availability of the precursor.
Tunability from conducting graphite to insulating diamond forms can be achieved by hetero atom bonding. For example a carbon hydrogen bond makes graphene layers more diamond like (in terms of bond angle) resulting in an increased band gap.
http://www.kau.edu.sa/Files/0005866/Researches/56762_27078.pdf
What could be the precursors for all carbon organic semiconductors? Due to rich chemistry of carbon the choices are endless. Common kitchen materials have already been demonstrated to possesses "n type semiconductivity" with band gap tunable up to 3.1 ev.
https://www.academia.edu/6769780/Thin_Films_of_Carbon_Nanomaterial_from_Natural_Precursor_by_Hot_Wire_CVD
Other household materials like sugar and wheat flour can be pyrolysed to give an amorphous,glass like, carbon framework to deposit these thin films on epitaxially. Alternatively glass like films can also be deposited on non carbon substrates.
http://www.personal.rdg.ac.uk/~scsharip/Eurasion.pdf
All carbon organic semiconductors are natural,bio compatible,require limited energy for their creation and are self sustaining -- meaning that energy required to create them can be supplied by the material itself.
While the industry has just started recognizing benefits of wide band gap,abundant silicon carbide semiconductors, all carbon organic semiconductors can not only outperform it on merits but also give rise to new device architectures that are simply not possible with any other material.
It took 100 years for the industry to appreciate silicon carbide. How many years will carbon take? Its not for no reason that carbon is called the king of elements.
Nature is an endless combination and repetition of a very few laws. And a few strong instincts and a
few plain rules are all you need.
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