Scientists surpass century-old limit in heat-to-electricity conversion

Researchers from JNCASR, the University of Sydney, and IISc discovered a crystalline semiconductor that generates thermoelectric voltage nearly 1,000 times higher than previously established physics limits.

The team, led by Bivas Saha, created heavily doped, highly compensated scandium nitride thin films on magnesium oxide substrates to achieve this breakthrough in the Seebeck effect.

This discovery, published on September 2, 2026, enables the development of new ultrasensitive temperature sensors, heat detectors, and quantum sensing devices by exceeding the traditional millivolts-per-Kelvin ceiling in solids.