New diode features optically controlled capacitance

A team of researchers at the Israel Institute of Technology has developed a new capacitor with a metal-insulator-semiconductor (MIS) diode structure that is tunable by illumination. The capacitor, which features embedded metal nanoparticles, is similar to a metal-insulator-metal (MIM) diode, except that the capacitance of the new device depends on illumination and exhibits a strong frequency dispersion, allowing for a high degree of tunability.