 |
|
Paint-on semiconductor outperforms chips
July 13, 2006New technology is cheaper, more powerful
Researchers at the University of Toronto have created a semiconductor device that outperforms today's conventional chips — and they made it simply by painting a liquid onto a piece of glass.
The finding, which represents the first time a so-called "wet" semiconductor device has bested traditional, more costly grown-crystal semiconductor devices, is reported in the July 13 issue of the journal Nature.
"Traditional ways of making computer chips, fibre-optic lasers, digital camera image sensors — the building blocks of the information age — are costly in time, money, and energy," says Professor Ted Sargent of the Edward S. Rogers Sr. Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering and leader of the research group. Conventional semiconductors have produced spectacular results — the personal computer, the Internet, digital photography — but they rely on growing atomically-perfect crystals at 1,000 degrees Celsius and above, he explains.
The Toronto team instead cooked up semiconductor particles in a flask containing extra-pure oleic acid, the main ingredient in olive oil. The particles are just a few nanometres (one billionth of a metre) across. The team then placed a drop of solution on a glass slide patterned with gold electrodes and forced the drop to spread out into a smooth, continuous semiconductor film using a process called spin-coating. They then gave their film a two-hour bath in methanol. Once the solvent evaporated, it left an 800 nanometre-thick layer of the light-sensitive nanoparticles.
At room temperature, the paint-on photodetectors were about ten times more sensitive to infrared rays than the sensors that are currently used in military night-vision and biomedical imaging. "These are exquisitely sensitive detectors of light," says Sargent, who holds a Canada Research Chair in Nanotechnology. "It's now clear that solution-processed electronics can combine outstanding performance with low cost."
The U of T development could be of critical importance to both research and industry, according to John D. Joannopoulos, a Professor at MIT. "The ability to realize low-cost, paintable, high-performance designer semiconductors for use as short-wavelength infrared detectors and emitters is of enormous value for a wide range of communications, imaging and monitoring applications," says Joannopoulos, the Francis Wright Davis Professor of Physics and director of the Institute for Soldier Nanotechnologies at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
"The key to our success was controlled engineering at the nanometre lengthscale: tailoring colloidal nanocrystal size and surfaces to achieve exceptional device performance," says lead author Gerasimos Konstantatos, a doctoral researcher at UofT. "With this finding, we now know that simple, convenient, low-cost wet chemistry can produce devices with performance that is superior compared to that of conventional grown-crystal devices."
University of Toronto
"Traditional ways of making computer chips, fibre-optic lasers, digital camera image sensors — the building blocks of the information age — are costly in time, money, and energy," says Professor Ted Sargent of the Edward S. Rogers Sr. Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering and leader of the research group. Conventional semiconductors have produced spectacular results — the personal computer, the Internet, digital photography — but they rely on growing atomically-perfect crystals at 1,000 degrees Celsius and above, he explains.
The Toronto team instead cooked up semiconductor particles in a flask containing extra-pure oleic acid, the main ingredient in olive oil. The particles are just a few nanometres (one billionth of a metre) across. The team then placed a drop of solution on a glass slide patterned with gold electrodes and forced the drop to spread out into a smooth, continuous semiconductor film using a process called spin-coating. They then gave their film a two-hour bath in methanol. Once the solvent evaporated, it left an 800 nanometre-thick layer of the light-sensitive nanoparticles.
At room temperature, the paint-on photodetectors were about ten times more sensitive to infrared rays than the sensors that are currently used in military night-vision and biomedical imaging. "These are exquisitely sensitive detectors of light," says Sargent, who holds a Canada Research Chair in Nanotechnology. "It's now clear that solution-processed electronics can combine outstanding performance with low cost."
The U of T development could be of critical importance to both research and industry, according to John D. Joannopoulos, a Professor at MIT. "The ability to realize low-cost, paintable, high-performance designer semiconductors for use as short-wavelength infrared detectors and emitters is of enormous value for a wide range of communications, imaging and monitoring applications," says Joannopoulos, the Francis Wright Davis Professor of Physics and director of the Institute for Soldier Nanotechnologies at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
"The key to our success was controlled engineering at the nanometre lengthscale: tailoring colloidal nanocrystal size and surfaces to achieve exceptional device performance," says lead author Gerasimos Konstantatos, a doctoral researcher at UofT. "With this finding, we now know that simple, convenient, low-cost wet chemistry can produce devices with performance that is superior compared to that of conventional grown-crystal devices."
University of Toronto
Semiconductor Current Events and Semiconductor News RSSSlicing solar power costs
University of Utah engineers devised a new way to slice thin wafers of the chemical element germanium for use in the most efficient type of solar power cells. They say the new method should lower the cost of such cells by reducing the waste and breakage of the brittle semiconductor.
Physicists harness effects of disorder in magnetic sensors
University of Chicago scientists have discovered how to make magnetic sensors capable of operating at the high temperatures that ceramic engines in cars and aircraft of the future will require.
Carbon molecule with a charge could be tomorrow's semiconductor
Virginia Tech chemistry Professor Harry Dorn has developed a new area of fullerene chemistry that may be the backbone for development of molecular semiconductors and quantum computing applications.
Bottoms up: Better organic semiconductors for printable electronics
Researchers from the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and Seoul National University (SNU) have learned how to tweak a new class of polymer-based semiconductors to better control the location and alignment of the components of the blend.
NIST studies how new helium ion microscope measures up
Just as test pilots push planes to explore their limits, researchers at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) are probing the newest microscope technology to further improve measurement accuracy at the nanoscale.
Scientists grow 'nanonets' able to snare added energy transfer
Using two abundant and relatively inexpensive elements, Boston College chemists have produced nanonets, a flexible webbing of nano-scale wires that multiplies surface area critical to improving the performance of the wires in electronics and energy applications.
'Racetrack' for fast electrons in semiconductor structures
In order to realize the electrical units of voltage, resistance and current with highest accuracy quantum effects in nano-circuits are nowadays used. Important prerequisites are extremely pure semiconductor layers where high-mobile electrons move through the crystal without collision with residual impurities.
Creating unconventional metals
The semiconductor silicon and the ferromagnet iron are the basis for much of mankind's technology, used in everything from computers to electric motors. In this week's issue of the journal Nature (August 21st) an international group of scientists, including academic and industrial researchers from the UK, USA and Lesotho, report that they have combined these elements with a small amount of another common metal, manganese, to create a new material which is neither a magnet nor an ordinary semiconductor.
Fast quantum computer building block created
The fastest quantum computer bit that exploits the main advantage of the qubit over the conventional bit has been demonstrated by researchers at University of Michigan, U.S. Naval Research Laboratory and the University of California at San Diego.
Light touch: Controlling the behavior of quantum dots
Researchers from the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and the Joint Quantum Institute (JQI), a collaborative center of the University of Maryland and NIST, have reported a new way to fine-tune the light coming from quantum dots by manipulating them with pairs of lasers.
More Semiconductor Current Events and Semiconductor News Articles
 | Physics of Semiconductor Devices by Simon M. Sze, Kwok K. Ng The Third Edition of the standard textbook and reference in the field of semiconductor devices This classic book has set the standard for advanced study and reference in the semiconductor device field. Now completely updated and reorganized to reflect the tremendous advances in device concepts and performance, this Third Edition remains the most detailed and exhaustive single source of... |
 | Semiconductor Device Fundamentals by Robert F. Pierret Introduces and explains the basic terminology, models, properties, and concepts associated with semiconductors and semiconductor devices. Systematically develops the analytical tools needed to solve practical device problems. DLC:... |
 | Advanced Semiconductor Fundamentals (2nd Edition) (Modular Series on Solid State Devices, V. 6) by Robert F. Pierret Focus on silicon-based semiconductors—a real-world, market-dominating issue that will appeal to people looking to apply what they are learning. Comprehensive coverage includes treatment of basic semiconductor properties, elements of Quantum Mechanics, energy band theory, equilibrium carrier statistics, recombination-generation processes, and drift/diffusion carrier transport. Practicing... |
 | Semiconductor Device Fundamentals by Donald A. Neamen An Introduction to Semiconductor Devices by Donald Neamen provides an understanding of the characteristics, operations and limitations of semiconductor devices. In order to provide this understanding, the book brings together the fundamental physics of the semiconductor material and the semiconductor device physics. This new text provides an accessible and modern presentation of material. ... |
 | Semiconductor Physics And Devices by Donald Neamen Neamen's Semiconductor Physics and Devices, Third Edition. deals with the electrical properties and characteristics of semiconductor materials and devices. The goal of this book is to bring together quantum mechanics, the quantum theory of solids, semiconductor material physics, and semiconductor device physics in a clear and understandable... |
 | The Essential Guide to Semiconductors (Essential Guide Series) by Jim Turley |
 | Semiconductor Devices: Physics and Technology, 2nd Edition by Simon M. Sze This book is an introduction to the physical principles of modern semiconductor devices and their advanced fabrication technology. It begins with a brief historical review of major devices and key technologies and is then divided into three sections: semiconductor material properties, physics of semiconductor devices and processing technology to fabricate these semiconductor... |
 | Fundamentals of Semiconductors: Physics and Materials Properties by Peter Y. Yu, Manuel Cardona This third updated edition of Fundamentals of Semiconductors attempts to fill the gap between a general solid-state physics textbook and research articles by providing detailed explanations of the electronic, vibrational, transport, and optical properties of semiconductors. The approach is physical and intuitive rather than formal and pedantic. Theories are presented to explain experimental... |
 | Optical Processes in Semiconductors by Jacques I. Pankove This comprehensive textbook and reference covers all phenomena involving light in semiconductors, emphasizing modern applications in semiconductor lasers, electroluminescence, photodetectors, photoconductors, photoemitters, polarization effects, absorption spectroscopy, radiative transfers and reflectance modulatons. With numerous problems. 339... |
 | Semiconductor Optoelectronic Devices (2nd Edition) by Pallab Bhattacharya The first true introduction to semiconductor optoelectronic devices, this book provides an accessible, well-organized overview of optoelectric devices that emphasizes basic principles. Coverage begins with an optional review of key concepts—such as properties of compound semiconductor, quantum mechanics, semiconductor statistics, carrier transport properties, optical processes, and junction... |
| © 2008 BrightSurf.com |