|
|
|
| Current Issue |
|
|
| Resources |
|
|
|
Super Semiconductors
| Article
# : |
20148 |
|
|
Section : |
NATURAL SCIENCE
|
| Issue
Date : |
2 / 1992 |
2,341 Words |
| Author
: |
Hank Hogan
Hank Hogan is a science writer in Austin, Texas. |
Silicon may be the workhorse of modern electronics, but it's not the only semiconductor around. There are other, with exotic names like gallium arsenide or glittering names like diamond, that have always been waiting, poised on the brink of widespread use.
The steady progress in diamond technology and the discovery of a superconducting variety of gallium arsenide could have a profound impact on electronics. The result may be computers that really are super, electronic sensors that are comfortable inside jet engines, and power plants that are a fraction of the size of today's.
"It definitely has potential for an enormous breakthrough," says Eicke Weber, an associate professor of materials science at the University of California in Berkeley. He's also a principal investigator in the Materials Science Division of Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory.
A semiconductor, as the name implies, isn't a conductor like copper. Neither is it an insulator like rock salt. Rather, it's a material that lies somewhere between the two. Where does it lie, halfway? More toward one than the other?
Weber answers that question by explaining that "a semiconductor is a material which has a unique property: You can change it's electrical properties over wide ranges of magnitude."
This characteristic allowed the development of the modern integrated circuit, which replaced a tangle of wires, resistors, switches, and other electronic devices with one tiny, monolithic chip. In order to do that, all those diverse elements had to be constructed on one small piece of material-on small feat to accomplish.
With semiconductors that isn't necessary, because their electrical properties are so variable that it's possible to make resistors, conductors, and switches out of a continuous piece of material. All that is needed is a way to create the desired electrical characteristics in a controlled fashion in controlled locations.
Exploiting Nature
The idea seems reasonable, but how is it done? The key is to exploit the crystalline nature of semiconductors. Imagine what would happen if in a silicon crystal one of the atoms were replaced by, say, a boron atom. The crystal would be disturbed,
...
Read Full Article
Look for this article in Ask.com
|
|
