Application Potential of pnp‑switching Semiconductors

Materials with tunable properties are often in the focus of materials science. Up to this point four different semiconducting materials and substitution variants have been found that are capable of switching between p‐ and n‐type conduction by a simple change in temperature. In this review, we illustrate previous findings of these pnp‐switching materials and current developments in functional implementations. While in the past decade, the scientific focus was primarily on discovering new materials that possess this intriguing switching effect, recently the first devices were successfully constructed and tested. Using the compounds, Ag18Cu3Te11Cl3 and AgCuS, that exhibit the pnp‐switching behaviour at approximately room temperature and 364 K, respectively, two single‐material diodes were developed and characterized. The approach for inducing this effect is denoted and the fundamental principles for realizing these devices are summarized.