semiconductor tagged posts

For the first time, scientists have managed to create sheets of gold only a single atom layer thick. The material has been termed goldene. According to researchers from Linköping University, Sweden, this has given the gold new properties that can make it suitable for use in applications such as carbon dioxide conversion, hydrogen production, and production of value-added chemicals. Their findings are published in the journal Nature Synthesis.

Scientists have long tried to make single-atom-thick sheets of gold but failed because the metal’s tendency to lump together. But researchers from Linköping University have now succeeded thanks to a hundred-year-old method used by Japanese smiths.

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By better taming the Jekyll-and-Hyde nature of an alternative to the semiconductor—one that transitions from electricity-resisting insulator to current-conducting metal—Nebraska’s Xia Hong and colleagues may have unlocked a new path to smaller, more efficient digital devices. The team reports its findings in the journal Nature Communications.

The semiconductor’s ability to conduct electricity in the Goldilocks zone—poorer than a metal, better than an insulator—positioned it as the just-right choice for engineers looking to build transistors, the tiny on-off sw...

Researchers from ETH Zurich, the University of Zurich and Empa have developed a new material for an electronic component that can be used in a wider range of applications than its predecessors. Such components will help create electronic circuits that emulate the human brain and that are more efficient at performing machine-​learning tasks.

Compared with computers, the human brain is incredibly energy efficient. Scientists are therefore drawing on how the brain and its interconnected neurons function for inspiration in designing innovative computing technologies...

UCLA engineers have demonstrated successful integration of a novel semiconductor material into high-power computer chips to reduce heat on processors and improve their performance. The advance greatly increases energy efficiency in computers and enables heat removal beyond the best thermal-management devices currently available.

The research was led by Yongjie Hu, an associate professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering at the UCLA Samueli School of Engineering. Nature Electronics recently published the finding in this article.

Computer processors have shrunk down to nanometer scales over the years, with billions of transistors sitting on a single computer chip...