Physics News

Even with great strides being made regularly in the realms of nanotech and materials science, Moore's Law - the notion that the number of transistors that can be placed on a given integrated circuit doubles every 18-24 months - has for several years been bearing down on engineers who have shrunk conventional chip technology about as far as material limitations will let them. But a graduate student at Rice University has demonstrated that a well-known insulator - silicon oxide - may just be the minuscule digital switches of the very near future. Researchers at a Rice University lab demonstrated last year that current could repeatedly break and reconnect tiny, 10-nanometer graphite strips to create reliable, very small memory bits. At the time they didn't understand why the graphite did this so well; now, grad student Jun Yao has figured it out, and it has little to do with graphite. Related ArticlesNanoribbons Moved by Light: Could Propel Cell-Sized Submarines, Create Cloaking Devices, New Microchips Moore

"The beauty of it is its simplicity," 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.
"I've been told by industry that if you're not in the 3-D memory business in four years, you're not going to be in the memory business. This is perfectly suited for that," Tour said.
"Manufacturers feel they can get pathways down to 10 nanometers. Flash memory is going to hit a brick wall at about 20 nanometers. But how do we get beyond that? Well, our technique is perfectly suited for sub-10-nanometer circuits," he said.
"We're real excited about where the data is going here," said PrivaTran CEO Glenn Mortland, who is using the technology in several projects supported by the Army Research Office, National Science Foundation, Air Force Office of Scientific Research, and the Navy Space and Naval Warfare Systems Command Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) and Small Business Technology Transfer programs.
"Our original customer funding was geared toward more high-density memories," Mortland said.
"Other group members didn't believe him," said Tour, who added that nobody recognized silicon oxide's potential, even though it's "the most-studied material in human history.
"Most people, when they saw this effect, would say, 'Oh, we had silicon-oxide breakdown,' and they throw it out," he said. "It was just sitting there waiting to be exploited."
"It was a really difficult time for me, because people didn't believe it," Yao said.
"This is research," Yao said.
"It's clear there are lots of radiation-hardened uses for this technology," Mortland said.