Rare subvalent compound sits on the fence between semiconductors and intermetallics
Liquid indium solvent and sulfur-poor conditions allow scientists to create a new subchalcogenide
Researchers in the US have made a compound with such unusual bonding patterns that current theories would not have predicted them. Laden with an excess of metal, Ir6In32S21 is a rare example of a polar subchalcogenide, and combines the features of an intermetallic compound with an electron-precise semiconductor.