> What's interesting is that the electrons got exited but the nuclei did not. This statement can't be right. If the temperature of the material went up, then

> What's interesting is that the electrons got exited but the nuclei did not. This statement can't be right. If the temperature of the material went up, then the nuclei became exited. And if they didn't, then the result is identical to the photoelectric effect. Edit: By the way, what you've described corresponds to "freeze-out" in old-fashioned semiconductor terms. As you drop the temperature of a diode, the free electrons and holes fall back to their low energy state and it turns back into a vanilla semiconductor. Heating it up makes them mobile again. Edit2: > Edit: all I know is what I read in the press release :) Yeah, it was clear that the PR was not written by someone knowledgeable. I'm sure there are MIT folks on this board so I'm hoping one of them pokes the right colleague so that we get a clearer answer, because it sure sounds like there's something interesting going on there. Thanks for the arxiv pointer, I'll try to look this weekend.