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Scientists in China, South Korea devise ‘pioneering strategy’ for breakthrough in semiconductor technology
- Challenges to developing amorphous semiconductors with high electron mobility have held back the development of new generation devices
- New strategy could make commercially viable amorphous p-type semiconductors a reality, team in Chengdu and Pohang says in Nature paper
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Scientists in China and South Korea say they have made a breakthrough in the development of amorphous semiconductors, with a new method that could lead the way to a new generation of semiconductor chip technology.
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Complementary metal-oxide semiconductor (CMOS) technology, which is widely used to make memory chips and computer processors, helps to produce reliable integrated circuits that require low inputs of power.
Traditional CMOS technology integrates polycrystalline semiconductors, which are made up of many crystallised silicon grains that all have their own structure.
Amorphous semiconductors, which lack this order and have randomly distributed atoms, are more cost-effective, simple and uniformly manufactured, according to the team of researchers.
However the traditional amorphous hydrogenated silicon used in such applications “falls short in electrical properties, necessitating the exploration of new materials”, they wrote in a paper published as an accelerated preview in the peer-reviewed journal Nature on Wednesday.
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The paper has undergone peer review but requires further proofing.
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