| Using mechanisms inspired by marine sponges, researchers at the University of California, Santa Barbara, have developed a technique for making a variety of thin-film materials, including semiconductors, structured at the nanoscale. Unlike other methods, the technique can produce semiconducting thin films without the use of harsh chemicals, and it works at room temperature, whereas some techniques require temperatures of 400 to 1,500 ºC. So far, the researchers have used the process to synthesize 30 types of materials, some of which have novel electronic and optical properties |
