One atom thick layer of silicon atoms is called as Silicene. Researchers at the University of Texas at Austin's Cockrell School of Engineering have created the first transistors made of silicene, the world’s thinnest silicon material.Their research holds the promise of building dramatically faster, smaller and more efficient computer chips.
Silicene has outstanding electrical properties but has until now proved difficult to produce and work with.One of the major challenges surrounding silicene was solved by Deji Akinwande, an assistant professor in the Cockrell School’s Department of electrical and computer engineering, and his team, including lead researcher Li Tao, they demonstrated that silicene can be made into transistors which are semiconductor devices used to amplify and switch electronic signals and electrical power.
Until a few years ago, silicene was a purely theoretical material the idea was inspired by looking at carbon-based graphene, another atom-thick material with promise for chip development, researchers speculated that silicon atoms also can be structured in a broadly similar way. Akinwande, who also works on graphene transistors, sees value in silicene's relationship to silicon, which chipmakers already know how to work with.
Akinwande said that "Apart from introducing a new player in the playground of 2-D materials, silicene, with its close chemical affinity to silicon, suggests an opportunity in the road map of the semiconductor industry,”.“The major breakthrough here is the efficient low-temperature manufacturing and fabrication of silicene devices for the first time.”he added
Due to silicene complexity and instability when exposed to air, it is extremely difficult to create and work with.To overcome these issues, Akinwande teamed with Alessandro Molle at the Institute for Microelectronics and Microsystems in Agrate Brianza, Italy, to develop a new method for fabricating the silicene that reduces its exposure to air.For starters the researchers let a hot vapour of silicon atoms condense onto a crystalline block of silver in a vacuum chamber. Then they formed a silicene sheet on a thin layer of silver and added a thick layer of alumina on top which in the order of nanometers.Because of these protective layers, the team could safely peel it of its base and transfer it silver-side-up to an oxidized-silicon substrate. They were then able to gently scrape some of the silver to leave behind two islands of metal as electrodes, with a strip of silicene between them.
Akinwande will continue to investigate the possible new structures and methods for creating silicene, which may help to create low-energy and high-speed digital computer chips.
Related posts:Supercomputers
Source:R&D Magazine
Silicene has outstanding electrical properties but has until now proved difficult to produce and work with.One of the major challenges surrounding silicene was solved by Deji Akinwande, an assistant professor in the Cockrell School’s Department of electrical and computer engineering, and his team, including lead researcher Li Tao, they demonstrated that silicene can be made into transistors which are semiconductor devices used to amplify and switch electronic signals and electrical power.
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| Honeycomb lattice structure of Silicene |
The first of their kind devices developed by Akinwande and his team rely on the thinnest of any semiconductor material it is a long-standing dream of the chip industry, and could carve the way for future generations of faster and energy efficient computer chips. Their work was published in Nature Nanotechnology.
Until a few years ago, silicene was a purely theoretical material the idea was inspired by looking at carbon-based graphene, another atom-thick material with promise for chip development, researchers speculated that silicon atoms also can be structured in a broadly similar way. Akinwande, who also works on graphene transistors, sees value in silicene's relationship to silicon, which chipmakers already know how to work with.
Akinwande said that "Apart from introducing a new player in the playground of 2-D materials, silicene, with its close chemical affinity to silicon, suggests an opportunity in the road map of the semiconductor industry,”.“The major breakthrough here is the efficient low-temperature manufacturing and fabrication of silicene devices for the first time.”he added
Due to silicene complexity and instability when exposed to air, it is extremely difficult to create and work with.To overcome these issues, Akinwande teamed with Alessandro Molle at the Institute for Microelectronics and Microsystems in Agrate Brianza, Italy, to develop a new method for fabricating the silicene that reduces its exposure to air.For starters the researchers let a hot vapour of silicon atoms condense onto a crystalline block of silver in a vacuum chamber. Then they formed a silicene sheet on a thin layer of silver and added a thick layer of alumina on top which in the order of nanometers.Because of these protective layers, the team could safely peel it of its base and transfer it silver-side-up to an oxidized-silicon substrate. They were then able to gently scrape some of the silver to leave behind two islands of metal as electrodes, with a strip of silicene between them.
Akinwande will continue to investigate the possible new structures and methods for creating silicene, which may help to create low-energy and high-speed digital computer chips.
Related posts:Supercomputers
Source:R&D Magazine
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