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...
Learn More

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....
Learn More

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...
Learn More

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...
Learn More

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...
Learn More

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...
Learn More

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...
Learn More

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...
Learn More

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...
Learn More

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 ...
Learn More

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...
Learn More

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 int...
Learn More

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...
Learn More

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 ...
Learn More

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...
Learn More

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...
Learn More

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...
Learn More

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 serial...
Learn More

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...
Learn More

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 trans...
Learn More

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 ...
Learn More

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...
Learn More