Nanotechnology Now

Our NanoNews Digest Sponsors







Heifer International

Wikipedia Affiliate Button


Home > Press > ORNL finding could help electronics industry enter new phase

Abstract:
Electronic devices of the future could be smaller, faster, more powerful and consume less energy because of a discovery by researchers at the Department of Energy's Oak Ridge National Laboratory

ORNL finding could help electronics industry enter new phase

Oak Ridge, TN | Posted on June 25th, 2009

The key to the finding, published in Science, involves a method to measure intrinsic conducting properties of ferroelectric materials, which for decades have held tremendous promise but have eluded experimental proof. Now, however, ORNL Wigner Fellow Peter Maksymovych and co-authors Stephen Jesse, Art Baddorf and Sergei Kalinin at the Center for Nanophase Materials Sciences believe they may be on a path that will see barriers tumble.

"For years, the challenge has been to develop a nanoscale material that can act as a switch to store binary information," Maksymovych said. "We are excited by our discovery and the prospect of finally being able to exploit the long-conjectured bi-stable electrical conductivity of ferroelectric materials.

"Harnessing this functionality will ultimately enable smart and ultra-dense memory technology."

In the paper, the authors have demonstrated for the first time a giant intrinsic electroresistance in conventional ferroelectric films, where flipping of the spontaneous polarization increased conductance by up to 50,000 percent. Ferroelectric materials can retain their electrostatic polarization and are used for piezoactuators, memory devices and RFID (radio-frequency identification) cards.

"It is as if we open a tiny door in the polar surface for electrons to enter," Maksymovych said. "The size of this door is less than one-millionth of an inch, and it is very likely taking only one-billionth of a second to open."

As the paper illustrates, the key distinction of ferroelectric memory switches is that they can be tuned through thermodynamic properties of ferroelectrics.

"Among other benefits, we can use the tunability to minimize the power needed for recording and reading information and read-write voltages, a key requirement for any viable memory technology," Kalinin said.

Numerous previous works have demonstrated defect-mediated memory, but defects cannot easily be predicted, controlled, analyzed or reduced in size, Maksymovych said. Ferroelectric switching, however, surpasses all of these limitations and will offer unprecedented functionality. The authors believe that using phase transitions such as ferroelectric switching to implement memory and computing is the real fundamental distinction of future information technologies.

Making this research possible is a one-of-a-kind instrument that can simultaneously measure conducting and polar properties of oxide materials with nanometer-scale spatial resolution under a controlled vacuum environment. The instrument was developed and built by Baddorf and colleagues at the Center for Nanophase Materials Sciences. The materials used for this study were grown and provided by collaborators at the University of California at Berkeley.

A link to the paper, "Polarization control of electron tunneling into ferroelectric surfaces," is available here: www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/324/5933/1421; Vol. 324, 2009, page 1421. This research was funded by the Office of Basic Energy Sciences within the Department of Energy's Office of Science. UT-Battelle manages Oak Ridge National Laboratory for DOE.

####

About ORNL
The Center for Nanophase Materials Sciences at Oak Ridge National Laboratory is one of the five DOE Nanoscale Science Research Centers, premier national user facilities for interdisciplinary research at the nanoscale. Together the centers comprise a suite of complementary facilities that provide researchers with state-of-the-art capabilities to fabricate, process, characterize and model nanoscale materials, and constitute the largest infrastructure investment of the National Nanotechnology Initiative. The centers are located at DOE's Argonne, Brookhaven, Lawrence Berkeley, Oak Ridge, Sandia and Los Alamos national laboratories. For more information about the DOE Nanoscale Science Research Centers, please visit nano.energy.gov.

For more information, please click here

Contacts:
Media Contact: Ron Walli
Communications and External Relations
865.576.0226

Copyright © Oak Ridge National Laboratory

If you have a comment, please Contact us.

Issuers of news releases, not 7th Wave, Inc. or Nanotechnology Now, are solely responsible for the accuracy of the content.

Bookmark:
Delicious Digg Newsvine Google Yahoo Reddit Magnoliacom Furl Facebook

Related News Press

Possible Futures

Space Solar Power: Key to a Livable Planet Earth June 10th, 2013

Global Nanotechnology Drug Delivery Market 2012-2016 June 10th, 2013

Nanorobot tetanus treatment animation June 9th, 2013

New horizons to drive the future of Medicine: European Technology Platform on Nanomedicine intends to lead the domain June 8th, 2013

Memory Technology

Imec showcases innovation in RRAM R&D at VLSI Technology Symposium June 14th, 2013

Data Highways for Quantum Information June 13th, 2013

Filmmaking magic with polymers June 12th, 2013

Leti Workshop on Innovative Memory Technologies to Include Samsung, Micron, SST-Microchip, Bosch, Altis Semiconductor and STMicroelectronics: June 27 Event to Explore Latest Results in Semiconductor Memory R&D June 5th, 2013

Nanoelectronics

Imec presents 4K2K CMOS image sensor together with Panasonic: The co-developed imager sensor chip targets high speed, high resolution imaging applications such as next generation HDTV June 18th, 2013

Imec shows multiple enhancement options for next-generation FinFETs: Leading nano-electronics R&D center addresses key challenges of Germanium finFET technology at VLSI 2013 June 14th, 2013

Controlling magnetic clouds in graphene June 14th, 2013

Spot-welding graphene nanoribbons atom by atom June 13th, 2013

Announcements

Pioneering breakthrough of chemical nanoengineering to design drugs controlled by light June 18th, 2013

Study Shows How the Nanog Protein Promotes Growth of Head and Neck Cancer June 18th, 2013

New Method to Synthesize Zinc Oxide Nanoparticles with High Catalytic Activity June 18th, 2013

Production of Polyaniline Biosensors Modified with Conductive Polymer Composites June 18th, 2013

Tools

Beneq’s comprehensive industrial Thin Film Coating Services shorten time to market June 18th, 2013

Which qubit my dear? New method to distinguish between neighbouring quantum bits June 18th, 2013

Pioneering breakthrough of chemical nanoengineering to design drugs controlled by light June 18th, 2013

Hitachi announces the SU8200 – a new type of cold field emitter SEM June 17th, 2013

Energy

Polymer-coated catalyst protects "artificial leaf" June 17th, 2013

Efficient and inexpensive: Researchers develop catalyst material for fuel cells: Platinum-nickel nano-octahedra save 90 percent platinum June 17th, 2013

Nanoparticles helping to recover more oil June 15th, 2013

Nanoparticle Opens the Door to Clean-Energy Alternatives June 14th, 2013

NanoNews-Digest
The latest news from around the world, FREE







  Premium Products
NanoNews-Custom
Only the news you want to read!
 Learn More
NanoTech-Transfer
University Technology Transfer & Patents
 Learn More
NanoStrategies
Full-service, expert consulting
 Learn More












ASP
Nanotechnology Now Featured Books




NNN

The Hunger Project








abbigliamento uomo
Computer Accessories
© Copyright 1999-2013 7th Wave, Inc. All Rights Reserved PRIVACY POLICY :: CONTACT US :: STATS :: SITE MAP :: ADVERTISE