Thin films
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Mar 5 | News
Solar cells made from silicon are projected to be a prominent factor in future renewable green energy equations, but so far the promise has far exceeded the reality. While there are now silicon photovoltaics that can convert sunlight into electricity at impressive 20% efficiencies, the cost of this solar power is prohibitive for large-scale use. Researchers with the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab), however, are developing a new approach that could substantially reduce these costs.
Mar 1 | News
MIT researchers have discovered a way to make microelectromechanical devices, or MEMS, by stamping them onto a plastic film. This discovery should reduce their cost, and open up the possibility of large sheets of sensors that could, one day, cover the wings of an airplane to gauge their structural integrity.
Feb 24 | News
Engineering researchers at the Univ. of Florida have crafted a flat surface that refuses to get wet. Water droplets skitter across it like ball bearings tossed on ice. They say they it is a nearly perfect hydrophobic surface, but not because the structure they have invented is "perfect".
Feb 24 | News
Johns Hopkins researchers have discovered that, under the right conditions, nanocrystalline materials—like those found in some integrated circuits—exhibit surprising activity in the tiny spaces between the geometric clusters of atoms called nanocrystals, from which they are made. This has implications for those who use thin films or manufacture MEMS.
Feb 17 | News
Using arrays of long, thin silicon wires embedded in a polymer substrate, a team of scientists from the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) has created a new type of flexible solar cell that enhances the absorption of sunlight and efficiently converts its photons into electrons.
Feb 12 | News
A simple one-step process that produces both n-type and p-type doping of large-area graphene surfaces could facilitate use of the promising material for future electronic devices. The doping technique can also be used to increase conductivity in graphene nanoribbons used for interconnects.
Feb 9 | News
P2i, a leading maker of liquid repellent nano-coating technology, has teamed up with U.S.-based to commercialize a new plasma process that dramatically reduces the surface energy of a material so that when liquids come into contact with it, they form beads and simply roll off.
Feb 3 | Application Notes
Processing UNCD for incorporation at wafer scale into devices uses the same equipment as for processing silicon (Si). Patterning of UNCD may be done via a hard mask gas etching (see recipe on next page). Diamond windows may be created by backside etching the silicon from the UNCD Wafer. The following UNCD property data provides some starting points for creating devices using UNCD wafers.
Jan 28 | News
Power-generating rubber films developed by Princeton Univ. engineers could harness natural body movements such as breathing and walking to power pacemakers, mobile phones and other electronic devices.
Jan 22 | News
Cornell researchers shed new light on how atoms arrange themselves into thin films. The team recreated conditions of layer-by-layer crystalline growth using particles much bigger than atoms, but still small enough that they behave like atoms.