The Next Generation Solution for Nanopips Comes Out of the Sky

Researchers at RMIT University have come up with a new type of transistor, the building block of all electronics. Instead of sending electrical currents through the silicon, these transistors send electrons through narrow air gaps, where they can travel unhindered, as in space.

The device unveiled in the journal of the subject sciences Nano Letters, eliminates the use of any semiconductor, making it faster and less prone to overheating.

Lead Author and PhD Candidate within RMIT's Functional Materials and Microsystems Research Group, Dr. Shruti Nirantar, has stated that this concept validation concept holds promise for nanopips, a combination of metal and air that can revolutionize the electronics.

"Every computer and every phone has millions or even billions of silicon electronic transistors, but this technology reaches its physical limits where silicon atoms hinder the flow of current, limiting speed and releasing heat," he said. Nirantar.

"Our air channel transistor technology circulates the current in the air, so there is no collision to slow it down or resistance in the material to produce heat."

The power of computer chips (or the number of transistors pressed onto a silicon chip) has risen predictably for decades, doubling every two years or so. But this rate of progress, known as Moore's Law, has slowed in recent years, as engineers struggle to reduce the size of transistor components, which are already smaller than the tiniest viruses.

According to Nirantar, their research is a promising avenue for nanoelectronics in response to the limitations of silicon-based electronics.

"This technology simply borrows a different path from the miniaturization of a transistor to enforce Moore's law for many more decades," said Shruti.

Associate Professor Sharath Sriram, head of the research team, said the design corrects a major flaw of traditional solid-channel transistors – they're filled with atoms – which meant the electrons that went through them collided, slowed down and wasted energy in the form of heat.

"Imagine walking in a very crowded street to get from point A to point B. The crowd slows your progress and drains your energy," Sriram said.

"On the other hand, traveling in a vacuum is like an empty highway where you can drive faster with higher energy efficiency."

But if this concept is obvious, the vacuum packaging solutions around the transistors to make them faster would also make them much larger, so they are not viable.

"We solve this problem by creating a nanoscale space between two metal dots.This space is only a few tens of nanometers, 50,000 times smaller than the width of a human hair, but it's enough to to fool the electrons into believing that they are traveling in an aspire and recreating a virtual outer space for electrons in the gap at the nanoscale, "he said.

The device at the nanoscale is designed to be compatible with the manufacturing and development processes of modern industry. It also has applications in the space, both as a radiation resistant electronics and to use the electron emission for the direction and positioning of "nano-satellites" .

"This is a step forward towards exciting technology that aims to create something from scratch to dramatically increase the speed of electronics and keep pace with rapid technological progress," he said. Sriram said.

Explore further:
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More information:
Shruti Nirantar et al, Metal – air transistors: nanoelectronics of atmospheric channels with field emission without semiconductors, Nano Letters (2018). DOI: 10.1021 / acs.nanolett.8b02849