Center Receives Funding for Nanoelectronics Research

July 28, 2009

The Materials Research Center at the McCormick School of Engineering and Applied Science recently received a Nanoelectronics Research Initiative grant aimed at improving electronics.

The grants, given to six universities across the country, will fund research with the goal of finding a replacement for the transistor — the foundational building block of computing technology for decades — and discovering a new digital switching mechanism using nanoelectronics innovation.

The Materials Research Center, directed by Monica Olvera de la Cruz, will contribute by focusing on generating, probing, and manipulating excitons in carbon-based nanomaterials. Excitons are bound pairs of electrons and “holes” with zero total charge; holes act like electrons with positive charge. Novel excitonic switch designs have the potential to avoid the dissipation associated with charge-based switching. Excitons are stable at room temperature in carbon nanotubes and graphene, making these carbon-based nanomaterials a promising platform for the development of new low power switches.

Principal investigators include Tobin Marks, Vladimir N. Ipatieff Research Professor of Chemistry and Professor of Materials Science and Engineering, Mark Hersam, professor of materials science and engineering, and Lincoln Lauhon, assistant professor of materials science and engineering.

The initiative is a partnership between Semiconductor Research Corporation (SRC), which is a university research consortium for semiconductors and related technologies, and the National Science Foundation (NSF).

Until recently, manufacturers were able to double the number of transistors on a chip at half the power for each transistor by shrinking them smaller and smaller in each new generation of semiconductor technology. However, it is becoming increasingly difficult to continue decreasing the power needed to turn the device off and on, making it difficult to continue the pace of product innovation from scaling alone.

“These investments in nanoelectronics align closely with NSF’s support for engineering and scientific research that furthers discovery,” said Lawrence Goldberg, senior engineering advisor at NSF. “We believe these grants, which support graduate students and postdoctoral associates, will create innovative technologies and help find a solution to this significant issue facing the semiconductor industry today.”