Nanotechnology Now

Our NanoNews Digest Sponsors
Heifer International



Home > Press > Re-thinking electronics – from the bottom up

Abstract:
More than 70 graduate students from across the country and Purdue University are on campus this week to learn about a new approach to 21st century electronic materials and devices.

Re-thinking electronics – from the bottom up

West Lafayette, IN | Posted on July 28th, 2009

A team of Purdue faculty and students is developing this new approach to provide a conceptual and computational framework for applications of nanoelectronics to tackle challenges in information processing and storage, energy, the environment and in technologies for health care.

"Electronics from the Bottom Up" summer schools are conducted annually and then freely distributed through nanoHUB.org, a resource for the nanoscience and technology communities that serves nearly 100,000 users per year, half of them outside of the United States. Through a new collaboration with World Scientific, an international science publisher, low-cost lecture notes for these courses will be made available to students to complement lectures on the nanoHUB.

"More than 50 years ago, the inventors of the transistor and their colleagues at Bell Laboratories defined the intellectual foundation for the field of semiconductor electronics," said Mark Lundstrom, Purdue's Scifres Distinguished Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering. "That framework has served the field well, leading to products from shirt pocket radios to supercomputers and cell phones. Today, it is widely felt that the future of electronics lies in nanotechnology."

When exploring new ideas for nanotechnologies, however, the traditional framework that has served researchers is frequently not the best way to think about these new problems, he said.

"What we need is to complement the traditional approach with the new insights and understanding emerging from research in nanoscience," Lundstrom said. "In the process we are led to a new, comprehensive framework that can guide the evolution of electronic devices and materials in the 21st century."

The new approach can be traced to pioneering research more than a decade ago on molecular electronics by a team at Purdue led by Supriyo Datta, the Thomas Duncan Distinguished Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering.

"To understand the experiments that were being done, we had to take a whole new approach to electronics," says Datta. "Surprisingly, this new approach is simpler than the traditional approach and often makes cutting edge research easier to understand."

Datta teaches this material, which is usually considered appropriate for advanced graduate students, to undergraduate students at Purdue in what has become a popular course in the of Electrical and Computer Engineering. Courses are taught at Purdue, and materials, including videos of lectures, are provided on the nanoHUB.

The short courses being taught this week have attracted top graduate students from around the nation.

This summer's graduate course focuses on treating randomness and reliability in electronics.

"In microelectronics today, the period at the end of this sentence would contain hundreds of thousands of transistors," said Ashraf Alam, a professor of electrical and computer engineering. And at this size, even a small variation in the properties of transistors can lead to dramatic variations in performance. In this summer school, we are teaching students how to think about the variability and randomness in a fundamentally new way. With the right set of tools, randomness need not be unpredictable."

Electronics from the Bottom Up is the most popular content on the nanoHUB, Lundstrom said.

"We think we have the right approach to this new field of nanoelectronics -- one that will serve as a foundation for many years," he said.

Purdue is collaborating with science publisher World Scientific to provide lecture notes and, eventually, textbooks based on the new approach. The World Scientific collaboration could speed the widespread adoption of the method, Lundstrom said.

The collaboration may lead to full-length books, also to be published by World Scientific, that will serve as textbooks and references for electronic devices and materials. World Scientific and the Purdue team will produce four volumes of material over three years. Low-cost lecture notes are expected to be priced in the $25 range.

The nanoHUB is operated by the Network for Computational Nanotechnology, or NCN, a six-university network funded by the National Science Foundation and based at Purdue. The Intel Foundation also provides support.

Today, researchers exploring nanoelectronics often apply techniques for microelectronics that they learned while students. Microelectronic device dimensions are measured in microns and nanoelectronic devices in nanometers -- a millionth or billionth of a meter, respectively.

Electronics from the Bottom Up begins by understanding the smallest structures and then builds that understanding up to the micro and even macro scales. One example is using nanotechnology to measure the electrical properties of single molecule devices. Although ordinarily a daunting task even for the most skilled researchers, seniors in Datta's course calculate the properties of molecular electronic devices within the first few weeks.

"A single molecule is a rather simple thing compared to a big chunk of silicon," Lundstrom said. " But if you try to apply concepts developed for silicon microelectronic devices to single molecule devices, they can look very complicated. If you approach the problem from the bottom up, it not only looks much simpler, it also provides a clearer description of what is happening."

The new approach is made possible by the capability -- developed about a decade ago -- of studying the electrical properties of molecule-size structures. Metal contacts are placed at either end of a molecule and voltage is applied, yielding information about its electrical characteristics.

Datta reasoned that this newly developed capability of measuring the electronic properties of single molecules could lead to a more general approach to understanding electronic conduction in small devices. "Too much time is spent teaching students about concepts and issues specific to large conductors that cannot even be applied to small conductors," Datta said. "In order to teach students, especially undergraduates, I developed a very different approach that allowed people to get into cutting-edge research, almost from day one."

The initial materials in the educational initiative are being developed by Datta, Lundstrom and Alam.

World Scientific, headquartered in Singapore, publishes more than 400 books and about 80 journals a year in the fields of science, technology, medicine, and business and management.

####

About Purdue University
Purdue University, located in West Lafayette, Indiana, U.S., is the flagship university of the six campuses within the Purdue University System.[1] With its highly competitive engineering curriculum and its leading programs in aerospace, electrical, and mechanical, Purdue is consistently regarded as one of the top technology schools in the world.

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

For more information, please click here

Contacts:
Writer: Emil Venere, 765-494-4709,

Sources: Mark Lundstrom, 765-494-3515,

Supriyo Datta, 765-494-2706,

Ashraf Alam, 765-494-6441,

Purdue News Service: (765) 494-2096;

Copyright © Purdue University

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 Links

nanoHUB

Related News Press

News and information

Researchers develop artificial building blocks of life March 8th, 2024

How surface roughness influences the adhesion of soft materials: Research team discovers universal mechanism that leads to adhesion hysteresis in soft materials March 8th, 2024

Two-dimensional bimetallic selenium-containing metal-organic frameworks and their calcinated derivatives as electrocatalysts for overall water splitting March 8th, 2024

Curcumin nanoemulsion is tested for treatment of intestinal inflammation: A formulation developed by Brazilian researchers proved effective in tests involving mice March 8th, 2024

Academic/Education

Rice University launches Rice Synthetic Biology Institute to improve lives January 12th, 2024

Multi-institution, $4.6 million NSF grant to fund nanotechnology training September 9th, 2022

National Space Society Helps Fund Expanding Frontier’s Brownsville Summer Entrepreneur Academy: National Space Society and Club for the Future to Support Youth Development Program in South Texas June 24th, 2022

How a physicist aims to reduce the noise in quantum computing: NAU assistant professor Ryan Behunin received an NSF CAREER grant to study how to reduce the noise produced in the process of quantum computing, which will make it better and more practical April 1st, 2022

Chip Technology

New chip opens door to AI computing at light speed February 16th, 2024

HKUST researchers develop new integration technique for efficient coupling of III-V and silicon February 16th, 2024

Electrons screen against conductivity-killer in organic semiconductors: The discovery is the first step towards creating effective organic semiconductors, which use significantly less water and energy, and produce far less waste than their inorganic counterparts February 16th, 2024

NRL discovers two-dimensional waveguides February 16th, 2024

Memory Technology

Interdisciplinary: Rice team tackles the future of semiconductors Multiferroics could be the key to ultralow-energy computing October 6th, 2023

Researchers discover materials exhibiting huge magnetoresistance June 9th, 2023

Rensselaer researcher uses artificial intelligence to discover new materials for advanced computing Trevor Rhone uses AI to identify two-dimensional van der Waals magnets May 12th, 2023

TUS researchers propose a simple, inexpensive approach to fabricating carbon nanotube wiring on plastic films: The proposed method produces wiring suitable for developing all-carbon devices, including flexible sensors and energy conversion and storage devices March 3rd, 2023

Nanoelectronics

Interdisciplinary: Rice team tackles the future of semiconductors Multiferroics could be the key to ultralow-energy computing October 6th, 2023

Key element for a scalable quantum computer: Physicists from Forschungszentrum Jülich and RWTH Aachen University demonstrate electron transport on a quantum chip September 23rd, 2022

Reduced power consumption in semiconductor devices September 23rd, 2022

Atomic level deposition to extend Moore’s law and beyond July 15th, 2022

Announcements

What heat can tell us about battery chemistry: using the Peltier effect to study lithium-ion cells March 8th, 2024

Curcumin nanoemulsion is tested for treatment of intestinal inflammation: A formulation developed by Brazilian researchers proved effective in tests involving mice March 8th, 2024

The Access to Advanced Health Institute receives up to $12.7 million to develop novel nanoalum adjuvant formulation for better protection against tuberculosis and pandemic influenza March 8th, 2024

Nanoscale CL thermometry with lanthanide-doped heavy-metal oxide in TEM March 8th, 2024

Environment

$900,000 awarded to optimize graphene energy harvesting devices: The WoodNext Foundation's commitment to U of A physicist Paul Thibado will be used to develop sensor systems compatible with six different power sources January 12th, 2024

Catalytic combo converts CO2 to solid carbon nanofibers: Tandem electrocatalytic-thermocatalytic conversion could help offset emissions of potent greenhouse gas by locking carbon away in a useful material January 12th, 2024

New catalyst could dramatically cut methane pollution from millions of engines: Researchers demonstrate a way to remove the potent greenhouse gas from the exhaust of engines that burn natural gas. July 21st, 2023

Billions of nanoplastics released when microwaving baby food containers: Exposure to plastic particles kills up to 75% of cultured kidney cells July 21st, 2023

Energy

Development of zinc oxide nanopagoda array photoelectrode: photoelectrochemical water-splitting hydrogen production January 12th, 2024

Shedding light on unique conduction mechanisms in a new type of perovskite oxide November 17th, 2023

Inverted perovskite solar cell breaks 25% efficiency record: Researchers improve cell efficiency using a combination of molecules to address different November 17th, 2023

The efficient perovskite cells with a structured anti-reflective layer – another step towards commercialization on a wider scale October 6th, 2023

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




  Premium Products
NanoNews-Custom
Only the news you want to read!
 Learn More
NanoStrategies
Full-service, expert consulting
 Learn More











ASP
Nanotechnology Now Featured Books




NNN

The Hunger Project