JNCASR-led team finds giant thermoelectric voltage in scandium nitride
On 31 August 2026, DST said a JNCASR-led team found that scandium nitride thin films convert temperature differences into a voltage nearly a thousand times larger than textbook limits, in work published in Science.
Summary
Researchers from the Jawaharlal Nehru Centre for Advanced Scientific Research (JNCASR), an autonomous institute of the Department of Science and Technology, with the University of Sydney and the Indian Institute of Science, found a crystalline semiconductor that produces a thermoelectric voltage nearly a thousand times larger than conventional limits, DST said on 31 August 2026. The team, led by Bivas Saha, grew thin films of scandium nitride (ScN) on magnesium oxide substrates by ultrahigh-vacuum magnetron sputtering. The effect relates to the Seebeck effect, where a temperature difference across a material builds up a voltage. The findings, published in the journal Science, could enable ultrasensitive temperature sensors, thermal imaging and quantum sensing devices.
Key facts
- Institutions
- JNCASR (DST), with University of Sydney and IISc
- Material
- Scandium nitride (ScN) thin films on MgO
- Finding
- Thermoelectric voltage ≈1,000× textbook limit in a solid
- Effect
- Seebeck effect – temperature difference → voltage
- Published in
- Science
Practice MCQs 2 questions
The generation of a voltage when a temperature difference is maintained across a material, studied in the JNCASR scandium nitride work, is known as which effect?
Show answer
Correct answer: A — Seebeck effect
The Seebeck effect converts a temperature difference into an electrical voltage; the Peltier effect is the reverse (current producing heating/cooling).
In the JNCASR-led study published in Science (August 2026), thin films of which material showed a giant thermoelectric voltage?
Show answer
Correct answer: D — Scandium nitride
The team grew scandium nitride (ScN) thin films on magnesium oxide substrates.