Exceptional plasticity in the bulk single-crystalline van der Waals semiconductor InSe

Deformable semiconductors Semiconductors are usually brittle and do not deform easily. Wei et al. found that bulk single crystals of indium selenide instead have excellent flexibility (see the Perspective by Han). The deformability comes from the compliant intralayer bonding between indium and selenium. The authors used these observations along with a previously discovered silver sulfide to determine a deformability factor for materials that may help find other deformable semiconductors. Science , this issue p. 542 ; see also p. 509