Meera Chandrasekhar describes herself as “a condensed matter experimentalist,” that is, a physicist who studies a class of materials called condensed matter systems (formerly known as “solids”). Within this class are three types of materials: insulators, which do not allow electricity to flow; conductors, which do allow electricity to flow; and semiconductors, which “have conducting properties that are in between that of insulators and conductors.” Chandrasekhar has spent most of her research career seeking to understand the special properties of this “in-between” class of materials.

“As an electron travels around, it keeps bumping into stuff,” Chandrasekhar offers as a simple explanation. “So the behavior of the electron gets defined not just by all the other stuff around it, but by the fact that it is bumping into the edges” of different materials. Quantum mechanics helps to explain the different kinds of behaviors that occur when dealing with very small scales.

The early semiconductors were all inorganic materials (such as silicon), of which there is a limited supply. Chandrasekhar is now looking at organic semiconductors, which present many exciting possibilities.