Electrical Materials
World’s first 300-mm self-assembly process line debuts
February 12, 2012 5:21 pm | News | CommentsAt this week's SPIE Advanced Lithography conference in San Jose, Calif., imec plans to announce the successful implementation of the world's first 300-mm fab-compatible directed self-assembly process line all under one roof.
Nanoshell whispering galleries improve thin solar panels
February 8, 2012 4:25 am | News | CommentsNanocrystalline-silicon has high electrical efficiency and is durable in sunlight. But its downfall has been relatively poor light absorption. As a solution, a team of engineers at Stanford University have created tiny hollow spheres of photovoltaic nanocrystalline-silicon, harnessing physics to do for light what circular rooms do for sound.
Scientists 'record' magnetic breakthrough
February 7, 2012 12:44 pm | News | CommentsInstead of using a magnetic field to record information on a magnetic medium, researchers in the U.K. recently harnessed much stronger internal forces and recorded information using only heat. This new method allows the recording of terabytes of information per second, hundreds of times faster than present hard drive technology.
Fabrication method pushes recording density to 3.3 Tb per square inch
February 1, 2012 6:17 am | News | CommentsIn magnetic recording media, each individual bit of information is stored over an area containing tens of grains. Engineers have until now had difficulty pushing beyond a one terabit per square inch limit by either reducing grain size or reducing the grains per bit. Researchers in Singapore have solved the problem by using something called bit-patterned media.
Ferroelectric switching discovered in soft biological tissue
January 30, 2012 10:31 am | News | CommentsThe heart's inner workings are mysterious, perhaps even more so with a new finding. Engineers at the University of Washington have discovered an electrical property in arteries not seen before in mammalian tissues. The researchers found that the wall of the aorta exhibits ferroelectricity, a response to an electric field known to exist in inorganic and synthetic materials.
Single-photon emitter resembles pixel in a display
January 26, 2012 8:21 am | by Robert Emmerich | News | CommentsTiny components with the ability to emit single particles of light are important for various technological innovations, such as encryption. Researchers in Germany have invented just such a component using three organic complexes groups around a central iridum atom and placed in a substrate. Induce electrical flow and photons are produced.
Addition of quantum dots to solar cells gets dramatic results
January 23, 2012 2:25 am | News | CommentsWith the help of military colleagues, University of Buffalo researchers have shown that embedding charged quantum dots into photovoltaic cells can improve electrical output by enabling the cells to harvest infrared light, and by increasing the lifetime of photoelectrons.
Giant magnetoresistance can occur in a giant way without magnetism
January 19, 2012 5:46 am | News | CommentsPhase-change random access memory (PCRAM) is a promising technology for next-generation non-volatile memory, but it has been limited by room temperature efficiency. A research group in Japan recently invented a variation of PCRAM that achieves a magnetoresistance effect of more than 2000% at room temperature and higher, and doesn’t require the use of magnetic elements such as cobalt and platinum.
Magnetic actuation enables nanoscale thermal analysis
January 13, 2012 8:38 am | News | CommentsIn recent years nanoscale thermal analysis has been employed to reveal the temperature-dependent properties of soft polymers at the nanoscale. Researchers at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and Anasys Instruments, Inc. have now shown that they can perform this nanoscale thermal analysis on stiff materials like epoxies and filled composites.
'Quantum critical' theory gets experimental boost
January 10, 2012 6:08 am | News | CommentsNew evidence supports a theory developed five years ago at Rice University to explain the electrical properties of several classes of materials—including unconventional superconductors—that have long vexed physicists. The findings represent an important step toward the ultimate goal of creating a unified theoretical description of the quantum behavior of high-temperature superconductors and related materials.
ORNL experiments prove nanoscale metallic conductivity in ferroelectrics
January 9, 2012 10:00 am | News | CommentsThe prospect of electronics at the nanoscale may be even more promising with the first observation of metallic conductance in ferroelectric nanodomains by researchers at Oak Ridge National Laboratory.
Ohm's law survives to the atomic scale
January 5, 2012 11:18 am | News | CommentsAccording to a recently published study, the narrowest silicon conducting wires ever made—just four atoms wide and one atom tall—have been shown to have the same electrical current carrying capability of copper. The finding suggests the wires could be a building block for future atomic-scale electronic circuitry.
Natcore receives NREL “black silicon” solar cell license
December 22, 2011 7:31 am | News | CommentsAn R&D 100 Award-winning technology from National Renewable Energy Laboratory has recently been licensed to Natcore, a Colorado-based company that is able to commercialize the “black silicon” technology with its liquid phase deposition process.
Solar paint uses nanoparticles to produce energy
December 21, 2011 12:26 pm | by Arnie Phifer | News | CommentsMaterials innovators at Notre Dame University have built a special type of nanoparticle from commonly used photovoltaic materials that converts sunlight to electricity. The particles, when dispersed in a paste, can be painted onto a surface to act as a large-area solar cell.
Self-healing electronics could work longer, reduce waste
December 21, 2011 12:01 pm | News | CommentsA team of University of Illinois engineers has developed a self-healing system that restores electrical conductivity to a cracked circuit in less time than it takes to blink. Their solution was to adapt a microcapsule healing solution used for polymers to conductive systems.
Heated AFM tip used as voltage tester for the first time
December 20, 2011 5:07 am | News | CommentsAtomic force microscope cantilever tips with integrated heaters are widely used to characterize polymer films, and to study fundamentals of nanometer-scale heat flow. Until University of Illinois engineers adapted such a tip to read electrothermal voltage, however, no one had used a heated nano-tip for electronic measurements.
Onset of electrical resistance has been seen in real time
December 16, 2011 7:26 am | News | CommentsResearchers at the Max Born Institute in Germany have observed the extremely fast onset of electrical resistance in a semiconductor by following electron motions in real time. Their solution relied on short bursts of terahertz light that revealed what was happening in just 300 fs.
World's largest Li-Ion battery factory launched in Russia
December 15, 2011 4:11 am | News | CommentsLiotech, a joint venture between RUSNANO and Chinese holding company Thunder Sky, has launched the world's largest high-capacity lithium-ion battery factory near Novosibirsk. Covering more than 40,000-m 2 , it has a design capacity of more than 1 GWh, or approximately one million batteries per year.
Amorphous silicon brings flex and efficiency to electronic optical fibers
December 14, 2011 3:30 am | News | CommentsA new chemical technique for depositing a non-crystalline form of silicon into the long, ultra-thin pores of optical fibers has been developed by an international team of scientists. The method is the first of its kind to use high-pressure chemistry to make this particular kind of well-developed films and wires.
Solution-based technology produces flex-and-stretch electronics
December 14, 2011 3:21 am | News | CommentsLawrence Berkeley National Laboratory engineers have pioneered a new inexpensive technique for fabricating large-scale flexible and stretchable backplanes using semiconductor-enriched carbon nanotube solutions. Their method yields networks of thin film transistors with excellent charge carrier mobility.
3D electronics can be connected with carbon nanotubes
December 12, 2011 7:47 am | News | CommentsTo build denser electronics, developers of 3D, or stacked, chips, have primarily used copper. However, copper has several disadvantages that can limit the reliability of 3D electronics. Researchers have recently demonstrated that two stacked chips can also be vertically interconnected with carbon nanotube vias through the chips.
New solar cell dye significantly boosts cell efficiency
December 12, 2011 7:40 am | News | CommentsDye-sensitized solar cells are made of inexpensive and environmentally benign materials including a dye, an electrolyte and titanium dioxide. A recently introduced dye, NCSU-10, has been shown to absorb more photons at lower dye concentrations, possibly helping developers build more transparent cells for windows and facades.
Found: The lifetime of electrons in graphene
December 12, 2011 5:40 am | News | CommentsTo be able to develop rapid electronic components based on graphene, one has to know precisely how long electrons linger at specific energy levels. Using longer wavelengths of light than had ever before been tested on graphene, an international team of scientists have recently made the first determination of the lifetime of electrons in graphene in lower energy ranges.
Pressure mat helps prevent bed sores
December 6, 2011 7:17 am | News | CommentsPeople permanently confined to beds or wheelchairs frequently develop bed sores. A new smart cushioning system has been developed by researchers in Germany that is intended to eliminate long-term discomforts of sitting or lying by equalizing pressure selectively.
Chemists sculpt tiny molecular traps
December 5, 2011 11:23 am | News | CommentsTube-shaped traps carved from bottle-brush molecules by chemists at the University at Buffalo could one day be used to capture and purify nanomaterials or proteins. The trapping mechanism is based on charge, and the tubes can selectively encapsulate positively charged molecules.
