Stories
Slash Boxes
Comments

SoylentNews is people

posted by takyon on Tuesday August 15 2017, @02:23AM   Printer-friendly
from the rust-to-riches dept.

Submitted via IRC for TheMightyBuzzard

Silicon has been the champ for semiconductor materials for a long time. Some Stanford engineers may have found its successor:

Chip makers appreciate what most consumers never knew: silicon’s virtues include the fact that it “rusts” in a way that insulates its tiny circuitry. Two new ultrathin materials share that trait and outdo silicon in other ways that make them promising materials for electronics of the future.

The next generation of feature-filled and energy-efficient electronics will require computer chips just a few atoms thick. For all its positive attributes, trusty silicon can’t take us to these ultrathin extremes.

Now, electrical engineers at Stanford have identified two semiconductors – hafnium diselenide and zirconium diselenide – that share or even exceed some of silicon’s desirable traits, starting with the fact that all three materials can “rust.”

“It’s a bit like rust, but a very desirable rust,” said Eric Pop, an associate professor of electrical engineering, who co-authored with post-doctoral scholar Michal Mleczko a paper that appears in the journal Science Advances.

The new materials can also be shrunk to functional circuits just three atoms thick and they require less energy than silicon circuits. Although still experimental, the researchers said the materials could be a step toward the kinds of thinner, more energy-efficient chips demanded by devices of the future.

HfSe2 and ZrSe2: Two-dimensional semiconductors with native high-κ oxides (open, DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.1700481) (DX)


Original Submission

 
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.
Display Options Threshold/Breakthrough Mark All as Read Mark All as Unread
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 15 2017, @03:26AM (2 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 15 2017, @03:26AM (#554067)

    Still, the dumbfuck TFA don't give nothing of substance.

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 15 2017, @05:13AM (1 child)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 15 2017, @05:13AM (#554087)

    Still, the dumbfuck TFA don't give nothing of substance.

    It's an article written in a way to be understood by the average schmo on the street. Believe it or not, there are indeed a lot of people that will look blankly when told about oxidation - but thell them something "sort of rusts in a way" and they will get it.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 15 2017, @10:48PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 15 2017, @10:48PM (#554476)

      Shouldn't have bitched about a PR piece being a PR piece. The sciencemag piece is much better. From its abstract:

      We demonstrate that layered two-dimensional (2D) semiconductors HfSe2 and ZrSe2 have band gaps of 0.9 to 1.2 eV (bulk to monolayer) and technologically desirable “high-κ” native dielectrics HfO2 and ZrO2, respectively. ... These are the first 2D materials to demonstrate technologically relevant properties of silicon, in addition to unique compatibility with high-κ dielectrics, and scaling benefits from their atomically thin nature.