{"id":224550,"date":"2025-11-05T05:30:39","date_gmt":"2025-11-05T11:30:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2025\/11\/light-can-reshape-atom-thin-semiconductors-for-next-generation-optical-devices"},"modified":"2025-11-05T05:30:39","modified_gmt":"2025-11-05T11:30:39","slug":"light-can-reshape-atom-thin-semiconductors-for-next-generation-optical-devices","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2025\/11\/light-can-reshape-atom-thin-semiconductors-for-next-generation-optical-devices","title":{"rendered":"Light can reshape atom-thin semiconductors for next-generation optical devices"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a class=\"aligncenter blog-photo\" href=\"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog.images\/light-can-reshape-atom-thin-semiconductors-for-next-generation-optical-devices.jpg\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Rice University researchers studying a class of atom-thin semiconductors known as transition metal dichalcogenides (TMDs) have discovered that light can trigger a physical shift in their atomic lattice, creating a tunable way to adjust the materials\u2019 behavior and properties.<\/p>\n<p>The effect, observed in a TMD subtype named after the two-faced Roman god of transitions, Janus, could advance technologies that use light instead of electricity, from faster and cooler computer chips to ultrasensitive sensors and flexible optoelectronic devices.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIn <a href=\"https:\/\/phys.org\/tags\/nonlinear+optics\/\" rel=\"tag\" class=\"\">nonlinear optics<\/a>, light can be reshaped to create new colors, faster pulses or optical switches that turn signals on and off,\u201d said Kunyan Zhang, a Rice doctoral alumna who is a first author on a study documenting the effect. \u201cTwo-dimensional materials, which are only a few atoms thick, make it possible to build these optical tools on a very small scale.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Rice University researchers studying a class of atom-thin semiconductors known as transition metal dichalcogenides (TMDs) have discovered that light can trigger a physical shift in their atomic lattice, creating a tunable way to adjust the materials\u2019 behavior and properties. The effect, observed in a TMD subtype named after the two-faced Roman god of transitions, Janus, [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":427,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1523,48],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-224550","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-computing","category-particle-physics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/224550","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/427"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=224550"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/224550\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=224550"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=224550"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=224550"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}