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Researchers at Princeton Engineering have created a semiconductor with unique properties: It is just a few molecules thick and can repeatedly change its properties in response to light. This is a step toward building more energy-efficient sensors, optoelectronic devices and computing technologies.

Advances in semiconductors over the past 50 years have allowed engineers to create increasingly smaller semiconductor devices and more efficient computers. But this approach is reaching its physical limits—the semiconductor devices are so tiny that it is challenging to add more devices. Researchers are now creating new materials rather than shrinking existing ones.

"One of the future goals for advancing electronics is not just making materials smaller, but making them adaptable and smarter," said Jaehoon Ji, a postdoctoral researcher and first author on the July 1 paper describing the research in Science Advances.

Current semiconductors, used to power everything from televisions to laptops to microwaves, respond to electrical signals. Once manufactured, the way they conduct electricity remains largely unchanged. This new material, by contrast, is responsive and changeable.

"The first step to creating smart materials is responsiveness," said Saien Xie, assistant professor of electrical and computer engineering and the paper's lead author. "Living systems are extremely smart, because they continuously sense and respond to their surroundings.

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