MIT physicists have created a transistor using a ferroelectric material that could revolutionize electronics. The material, an innovation by the same team and colleagues in 2021, is ultrathin and separates positive and negative charges into different layers.
Led by Pablo Jarillo-Herrero, Cecil and Ida Green Professor of Physics, and Raymond Ashoori, professor of physics, the team demonstrated that their new transistor outperforms current industry standards in several key aspects.
At the center of the new transistor is ferroelectric material stacked in a parallel configuration, an arrangement that does not occur naturally.
When an electric field is applied, the layers slide slightly past each other and change the positions of the boron and nitrogen atoms, radically changing the electronic properties of the material.
“In my lab, we do mostly fundamental physics. This is one of the first, and perhaps most spectacular, examples of how the most fundamental science has led to something that could have a major impact on applications,” Jarillo-Herrero said. MIT News.
High performance and durability
The new transistor stands out from conventional electronics with an impressive range of capabilities.
Of particular note is its ability to switch from a positive charge to a negative charge (essentially zero or one) at speeds of the order of nanoseconds. This rapid switching capability is essential for high-performance computing and data processing.
The transistor’s durability is even more remarkable. According to the team, the transistor showed no signs of degradation even after 100 billion switching cycles. In comparison, conventional flash memory devices are plagued by wear-out issues and require sophisticated methods to distribute read and write operations across the chip.
Additionally, the ultrathin transistor, measuring only a few billionths of a meter thick, opens up possibilities for much denser computer memory storage, as well as more energy-efficient transistors.
Future prospects
“We built the hardware and, with Ray, [Ashoori] And [co-first author] Evan [Zalys-Geller]”We measured its characteristics in detail,” said Kenji Yasuda, co-first author of the study and now an assistant professor at Cornell University, noting the synergy between the different research groups. “It was very exciting.”
Despite its seemingly limitless potential, challenges remain before the technology can be widely adopted. “We made a single transistor as a demonstration. If people could grow these materials on a wafer scale, we could make many, many more,” Yasuda said. MIT News.
The research team is also investigating the possibility of triggering ferroelectricity using alternative methods such as optical pulses and testing the limits of the material’s switching capabilities, among other possibilities. The conventional method of producing these new ferroelectrics is complex and not suitable for mass production.
“There are some problems, but if we solve them, this material can be integrated in many ways into future electronic devices. It’s very interesting,” Ashoori concludes.
“When I think about my entire career in physics, this is the work that I think could change the world in 10 to 20 years.”
Details of the team’s research were published in the journal Science.
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