Researchers introduce new potential for semiconductors from naturally occurring mineral

Researchers at Missouri University of Science and Technology have found that flakes of lengenbachite, a mineral discovered 100 years ago in Switzerland, have strong anisotropic properties, meaning that the optical responses of the flakes vary along axis lines depending on the orientations of the flakes. This material could have implications for directional light-emitting devices, encrypted data transfer and signal processing, and polarization-sensitive photodetectors.