Credit: CC0 Public Domain

In the future, could our mobile phones and internet data operate using light rather than just electricity? Now, for the first time, an international research team led by CNRS researchers working at the Albert Fert Laboratory (Laboratoire Albert Fert; CNRS/Thales) has discovered how to generate an electron gas found in LED screens, by illuminating a material made up of layers of oxides.

These gases, which occur naturally in certain semiconductor materials, had previously only been manipulated using electrical signals in oxidized materials. When the light is switched off, the gas disappears.

This phenomenon, which lies at the interface of optics and electronics, paves the way for numerous applications in electronics, spintronics and quantum computing. It is described in research appearing in Nature Materials.

Electronic components that can be controlled by light rather than electricity have the advantage of being much faster, more energy-efficient and simpler to operate. For example, the use of light-controlled transistors could eliminate up to one-third of the electrical contacts on a chip, saving around a billion electrical contacts on a computer processor alone.

Other applications combining photonics and electronics could result from this discovery, such as the design of ultra-sensitive optical detectors. In this case, light effectively acts as a booster. For the same electrical voltage, the current produced is up to 100,000 times stronger than in the dark.

This breakthrough was achieved by combining cutting-edge experiments with theoretical calculations. The arrangement of the atoms at the interface between the two oxide layers was meticulously calibrated, observations at the atomic scale were used to identify the behavior of the atoms, and modeling helped to describe the motion of their electrons when exposed to light stimuli.

Scientists at the Strasbourg Institute of Materials Physics and Chemistry (Institut de physique et chimie des matériaux de Strasbourg) (CNRS/Université de Strasbourg) and the Solid State Physics Laboratory (Laboratoire de physique des solides) (CNRS/Université Paris-Saclay) were also involved in this research.

More information: Giant photoconductance at infinite-layer nickelate/SrTiO3 interfaces via an optically induced high-mobility electron gas, Nature Materials (2025). DOI: 10.1038/s41563-025-02363-y.

Citation: Light-controlled electron gas hints at future of ultra-fast electronics (2025, October 10) retrieved 10 October 2025 from https://techxplore.com/news/2025-10-electron-gas-hints-future-ultra.html

This document is subject to copyright. Apart from any fair dealing for the purpose of private study or research, no part may be reproduced without the written permission. The content is provided for information purposes only.