The demand for smaller wireless communication devices that use less power is growing. In particular, radio frequency identification (RFID) systems require small, low-power transmitters to label or &ld...
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The creation and replication of nanoscale patterns is becoming increasingly important for the development of new electromechanical, chemical and biological devices at the micro- and nanoscale.  F...
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Distributed Bragg reflectors (DBRs) are found in photodetectors, solar cells and other optical sensors. Stacks of DBRs are incorporated in vertical-cavity surface emitting lasers (VCSELs), which are a...
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Flexible electronics such as pliant displays, wearable electronics and new biomedical devices have gained popularity in recent years. Such devices are mounted on a supple plastic support layer and off...
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Semiconducting single-walled carbon nanotubes (s-SWCNTs) are key building blocks for nanoscale technologies given their interesting physical and chemical properties. They are especially promising for ...
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Single molecule spectroscopy and microscopy – a popular tool for biological, biophysical and chemical characterization – generally requires the use of fluorescent molecules. Researchers at UW–M...
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Zinc oxide (ZnO) is an inorganic semiconductor with applications in large area photovoltaics and transparent electronics. Producing zinc oxide thin films with excellent electronic properties is challe...
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Complex integrated circuits must be individually tested during manufacturing. System-on-chip (SoC) circuits combine multiple functional elements on a single substrate. For example, such systems may co...
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The semiconductor industry constantly is seeking new methods to improve memory speed and efficiency that are compatible with large-scale fabrication processes and environmentally-friendly. Currently,...
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Germanium (Ge), a group-IV semiconductor material, is crucial to many established and potential technologies. In optoelectronics, Ge has been used as a photodetector material for on-chip data distribu...
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A whispering gallery mode (WGM) is a type of electromagnetic wave that travels around a concave surface. Such waves can propagate at the edge of a very small structure called an optical microcavity. W...
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Future advances in semiconductor electronics for computers will require three-dimensional (3-D) integrated circuits that are not limited by the physics of thin film processing. In addition, flexible e...
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Chips made of strained silicon (Si) have higher electron mobility than chips made of unstrained Si, enabling the fabrication of faster semiconductor devices. Current methods of producing strained Si r...
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In magnetic recording bit patterned media (BPM), each magnetic bit is physically isolated in the form of nanometer-scale islands. These features can be fabricated by nano-imprint lithography in which ...
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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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The lithographic process is one of the most powerful technologies of the digital electronics era. Lithography allows hundreds of millions of components to be fabricated on a single chip with pattern f...
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‘Virtual substrates’ comprise an underlying growth substrate and one or more metamorphic buffer layers (MBLs) made of semiconductor alloy. The MBL is graded so that its lattice constant in...
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Interest in graphene has surged due to its outstanding electrical properties. Graphene is a two-dimensional, carbon-based material with high tensile strength, stiffness, optical transparency and therm...
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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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Block copolymers (BCPs) are a class of polymers synthesized from two or more bonded units. Forming BCPs in bulk, and turning the material into thin film, can produce nanoscale structures useful to man...
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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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One of the strongest, lightest and most conductive materials known, graphene is an atom-thick carbon film with unrivaled high-tech potential. It is stronger than diamond but capable of bending like ru...
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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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