semiconductor
CHAMPAIGN, Ill. -- Researchers at the University of Illinois have found a new way to make transistors smaller and faster. The technique uses self-assembled, self-aligned, and defect-free nanowire channels made of gallium arsenide.
In the first demonstration of its kind, researchers at the University of British Columbia have controlled the spin of electrons using a ballistic technique--bouncing electrons through a microscopic channel of precisely constructed, two-dimensional layer of semiconductor.
For the first time, scientists have succeeded in measuring and controlling the lifetime of quantum states with potential use in optoelectronic chips.
Our modern age has become accustomed to regular improvements in information technology, says Slava Rotkin, but these advances do not come without a cost.
CORVALLIS, Ore. - Engineers at Oregon State University have discovered a way to use an ancient life form to create one of the newest technologies for solar energy, in systems that may be surprisingly simple to build compared to existing silicon-based solar cells.
The secret: diatoms.
A revolutionary approach to the design of consumer products - from automobiles to plasma TVs - could cut manufacturers' warranty costs significantly. Writing in a forthcoming issue of the International Journal of Six Sigma and Competitive Advantage, US researchers explain how manufacturers should simply design for reliability.
When squeezed, electrons increase their ability to move around. In compounds such as semiconductors and electrical insulators, such squeezing can dramatically change the electrical- and magnetic- properties.
Traditionally, stimulating nerves or brain tissue involves cumbersome wiring and a sharp metal electrode. But a team of researchers at Case Western Reserve University is going "wireless."
In the first real-world test of a revolutionary type of computing that thrives on random errors, scientists have created a microchip that uses 30 times less electricity while running seven times faster than today's best technology.
A team of Los Alamos researchers led by Victor Klimov has shown that carrier multiplication—when a photon creates multiple electrons—is a real phenomenon in tiny semiconductor crystals and not a false observation born of extraneous effects that mimic carrier multiplication.
A new way of making LEDs could see household lighting bills reduced by up to 75% in five years time, thanks to research at Cambridge University.
Researchers have discovered a way to control the nature of graphene, bringing academia and industry potentially one step closer to realizing the mass production of graphene-based nanoelectronics.
A low-power, magnetic sensor about the size of a grain of rice that can detect magnetic field changes as small as 50 picoteslas--a million times weaker than the Earth's magnetic field--has been demonstrated by researchers at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST). Described in the Dec. 27 issue of Applied Physics Letters,* the device can be powered with batteries and is about 100 times smaller than current atom-based sensors with similar sensitivities, which typically weigh several kilograms (about 6 pounds).
Bose-Einstein condensates are enigmatic states of matter in which huge numbers of particles occupy the same quantum state and, for all intents and purposes, lose their individual identity. Predicted long ago by Albert Einstein and Satyendranath Bose, these bizarre condensates have recently become one of the hottest topics in physics research worldwide. Now, physicists at the California Institute of Technology and the University of Texas at Austin have created a sustained Bose-Einstein condensate of excitons, unusual particles that inhabit solid semiconductor materials.
Researchers have demonstrated the laser operation of a heterojunction bipolar light-emitting transistor. The scientists describe the fabrication and operation of their transistor laser in the Nov. 15 issue of the journal Applied Physics Letters. ''By incorporating quantum wells into the active region of a light-emitting transistor, we have enhanced the electrical and optical properties, making possible stimulated emission and transistor laser operation.''
The same principle making possible the transistor -- negative and positive charge annihilation in the active region (the source of one of the transistor's three currents) -- has been extended and employed to make a transistor laser.
