Malko and his team were surprised to discover that excitons in LAST-produced TMDs lasted up to 100 times longer than those in other TMD materials. “These excitons are used as a kind of reservoir to slowly feed the optically active excitons,” he said. “That strain is crucial for creating these optically inactive, indirect excitons,” he said. “If you can apply gate voltage and show that 2D TMD materials will work for future electronic devices, it’s a huge step. The atomic monolayer in 2D TMD material is 10 times smaller than the size limit with silicon.