Polymer brushes are a broad class of materials made of polymer chains tethered at one end to a substrate. These brushes are able to tune and modify surface properties like bioadhesion and wettability....
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Block copolymers (BCPs) self-assemble into well-defined, highly regular and dense nanostructures. Such BCP arrays are useful for fabricating electronic devices like magnetic storage media, quantum dot...
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Fast, flexible electronics operating at radio frequencies (greater than 1 GHz) are attractive because of their versatility, power savings and wide applicability. Uses include wireless and high-speed c...
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For many applications – from remote sensing to laser displays – it is necessary to convert the frequency of light via nonlinear interaction in semiconductor materials. Waveguide devices accomplish...
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Semiconductors, which regulate power flow in many modern electronic devices, use interconnects such as bond wires or lead frames to integrate different components: chip, substrate and terminals. Inter...
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Promising advances in areas like solar cells and photonic crystals are utilizing optical components with nanoscale dimensions. Unique in their ability to collect and manipulate light, these structures...
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Rapid development of superconducting quantum electronics has motivated a search for quantum-limited amplifiers for the low-noise readout of qubits and linear cavity resonators. Conventional approaches...
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Graphene possesses tremendous electrical properties, making it suitable for numerous applications. The current method of fabricating this material involves growing or isolating a full sheet of graphen...
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Managing power consumption of integrated circuits such as microprocessors is important for conserving energy, improving battery life and reducing issues with device cooling. A common method to reduce ...
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Diodes are two-terminal electrical devices that only allow electrical current to flow in one direction. Diodes are used often in electrical circuits to extract a direct current from an alternating cur...
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As electronic gadgets continue to get smaller, tiny metal silicide nanowires may one day be used as fundamental building blocks in devices from cell phones to lasers.  Metal silicides already are...
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Tunneling magneto-resistive (TMR) read heads are the next generation in magneto-resistive readers for hard drive disks. TMRs typically include a magnetic tunnel junction (MTJ) that is composed of an o...
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Quantum computers use quantum particles (e.g., electrons), called qubits, to process information, instead of bits as in classical, serial computing. Unlike bits, which exist in either the 0 or 1 state...
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For integrated circuits, including very large scale integration (VLSI) circuits, to work properly, the signals traveling along the gates and interconnects must be properly timed. Using classical case ...
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The fabrication of semiconductor devices involves growing thin films on wafers and patterning them. However, thin films typically exhibit intrinsic stress, which can lead to failure of electronic devi...
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Tunneling magneto-resistive (TMR) read heads are the next generation in magneto-resistive readers for hard drive disks. TMRs typically include a magnetic tunnel junction that is composed of an oxidize...
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PIN diodes are semiconductor devices that include an undoped intrinsic semiconductor region between the p-type and n-type regions. These diodes are commonly integrated as photodetectors on silicon CMO...
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Very large scale integrated (VLSI) circuits are tested before use to evaluate reliability and performance. The two most common testing methods are serial-scan and random access scan (RAS). The se...
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The semiconductor industry fabricates integrated circuits (IC) through a series of plasma processes that involve etching lines and spots, as well as depositing thin films of materials and modifying su...
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Computer chips, composed of silicon (Si) semiconductors, store and transmit information as electrons.  The negative charge on electrons, however, hinders the speed with which information can be t...
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Thin-film transistors often use a single-crystal layer of silicon semiconductor attached to a flexible plastic substrate to allow flexibility in the electronics. However, transistors using some types ...
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Complementary metal-oxide semiconductor (CMOS) technology is commonly used in integrated circuits for microelectronics. Current is produced in semiconductor devices by using mobile charge carriers, ei...
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