Home > Press > Transparent memory chips are coming: Rice University professor reveals advance at American Chemical Society national meeting
 |
A flexible, transparent memory chip created by researchers at Rice University.
(Credit: Tour Lab/Rice University) |
Abstract:
Want a see-through cellphone you can wrap around your wrist? Such a thing may be possible before long, according to Rice University chemist James Tour, whose lab has developed transparent, flexible memories using silicon oxide as the active component.
Transparent memory chips are coming: Rice University professor reveals advance at American Chemical Society national meeting
Houston, TX | Posted on March 28th, 2012
Tour revealed this week in a talk at the national meeting and exposition of the American Chemical Society in San Diego that the new type of memory could combine with the likes of transparent electrodes developed at Rice for flexible touchscreens and transparent integrated circuits and batteries developed at other labs in recent years.
Details of the Rice breakthrough will be published in an upcoming paper, Tour said.
"Generally, you can't see a bit of memory, because it's too small," said Tour, Rice's T.T. and W.F. Chao Chair in Chemistry as well as a professor of mechanical engineering and materials science and of computer science. "But silicon itself is not transparent. If the density of the circuits is high enough, you're going to see it."
Rice's transparent memory is based upon the 2010 discovery that pushing a strong charge through standard silicon oxide, an insulator widely used in electronics, forms channels of pure silicon crystals less than 5 nanometers wide. The initial voltage appears to strip oxygen atoms from the silicon oxide; lesser charges then repeatedly break and reconnect the circuit and turn it into nonvolatile memory. A smaller signal can be used to poll the memory state without altering it.
That discovery was reported on the front page of the New York Times. The Rice lab has since developed a working two-terminal memory device that can be stacked in a three-dimensional configuration and attached to a flexible substrate.
####
About Rice University
Located on a 300-acre forested campus in Houston, Rice University is consistently ranked among the nation's top 20 universities by U.S. News & World Report. Rice has highly respected schools of Architecture, Business, Continuing Studies, Engineering, Humanities, Music, Natural Sciences and Social Sciences and is known for its "unconventional wisdom." With 3,708 undergraduates and 2,374 graduate students, Rice's undergraduate student-to-faculty ratio is 6-to-1. Its residential college system builds close-knit communities and lifelong friendships, just one reason why Rice has been ranked No. 1 for best quality of life multiple times by the Princeton Review and No. 4 for "best value" among private universities by Kiplinger's Personal Finance. To read "What they're saying about Rice," go to www.rice.edu/nationalmedia/Rice.pdf.
For more information, please click here
Contacts:
David Ruth
713-348-6327
Mike Williams
713-348-6728
Copyright © Rice 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:
News and information
Less is More: Novel Cellulose Structure Requires Fewer Enzymes to Process Biomass to Fuel June 19th, 2013
Sound waves precisely position nanowires June 19th, 2013
Scientists Use Nanotechnology to Increase Thermal Stability of Essential Oils June 19th, 2013
Production of Bioactive Material for Quick Treatment of Bone Damages June 19th, 2013
Display technology/LEDs/SS Lighting/OLEDs
Peratech's new QTC Ultra Touch Screen technology goes behind the display so there is no light loss and longer battery life June 18th, 2013
OLED Lighting developments in Japan June 3rd, 2013
Flexible Electronics
Graphene and semiconductor technology together: smaller, cheaper, better June 12th, 2013
OLED Lighting developments in Japan June 3rd, 2013
Printing innovations provide 10-fold improvement in organic electronics June 3rd, 2013
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
Chip Technology
Sound waves precisely position nanowires June 19th, 2013
Nanometrics Announces Participation in 5th Annual CEO Investor Summit: Accredited Investor and Publishing Research Analyst Event to be Held Concurrently With SEMICON West and Intersolar 2013 in San Francisco June 19th, 2013
Which qubit my dear? New method to distinguish between neighbouring quantum bits June 18th, 2013
SEMATECH to Address Critical Supply Chain Challenges and Present Latest Technology Advances at SEMICON West 2013 June 17th, 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
Discoveries
A Battery Made of Wood? Wood fibers help nano-scale batteries keep their structure June 19th, 2013
Less is More: Novel Cellulose Structure Requires Fewer Enzymes to Process Biomass to Fuel June 19th, 2013
Sound waves precisely position nanowires June 19th, 2013
Scientists Use Nanotechnology to Increase Thermal Stability of Essential Oils June 19th, 2013
Announcements
Less is More: Novel Cellulose Structure Requires Fewer Enzymes to Process Biomass to Fuel June 19th, 2013
Sound waves precisely position nanowires June 19th, 2013
Scientists Use Nanotechnology to Increase Thermal Stability of Essential Oils June 19th, 2013
Production of Bioactive Material for Quick Treatment of Bone Damages June 19th, 2013
Battery Technology/Capacitors/Generators/Piezoelectrics
mPhase Technologies Receives 2013 Frost & Sullivan Award for Its Path-Breaking Battery Technology: Unparalleled Battery Shelf Life, Reduction in Toxicity, Cost-Effectiveness, and Small Footprint Distinguish the Cell-Array Battery From Competing Technologies June 19th, 2013
A Battery Made of Wood? Wood fibers help nano-scale batteries keep their structure June 19th, 2013
Sound waves precisely position nanowires June 19th, 2013
3-D printing could lead to tiny medical implants, electronics, robots, more June 18th, 2013
Events/Classes
Beating the Diffraction Limit by 1000X – An introduction to nanoscale IR imaging on Bruker AFMs with applications in graphene June 19th, 2013
Nanometrics Announces Participation in 5th Annual CEO Investor Summit: Accredited Investor and Publishing Research Analyst Event to be Held Concurrently With SEMICON West and Intersolar 2013 in San Francisco June 19th, 2013
Research and industry frontrunners gather in Dublin at the EuroNanoForum, Europe’s largest nanotechnology conference June 18th, 2013
Discover the ‘Nanostructure Advantage’ at ECerS 2013, Booth 5: Innovnano presents nanostructured powders for high performance ceramics June 17th, 2013