The research group of Julia Stähler (Fritz Haber Institute and Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin) has found out that semiconductors can be converted to metals and back more easily and more quickly than previously thought. This discovery may increase the processing speed and simplify the design of many common technological devices.
Band bending at semiconductor surfaces induced by chemical doping or electric fields can create metallic surfaces with properties not found in the bulk, such as high electron mobility, magnetism or superconductivity. Optical generation of such metallic surfaces on ultrafast timescales would be appealing for high-speed electronics. It was demonstrated that the ultrafast generation of a metal at the (10-10) surface [more...]

Characterization of the electronic band structure of solid state materials is routinely performed using photoemission spectroscopy. Recent advancements in short-wavelength light sources and electron detectors give rise to multidimensional photoemission spectroscopy, allowing parallel measurements of the electron spectral function simultaneously in energy, two momentum components and additional physical parameters with single-event detection capability. Efficient processing of the photoelectron event streams at a rate [more...]