SEMICONDUCTOR WORK MAY SPUR NEW ELECTRONICS ADVANCES

Main Menu | News By Date | News By Supplier | News By Category | About Us

SEMICONDUCTOR WORK MAY SPUR NEW ELECTRONICS ADVANCES
11 December 2000 - University of Wisconsin-Madison

A new research project in the University of Wisconsin-Madison's College of Engineering to integrate semiconductor materials may lead to new applications in sensing, computing and wireless communication.

The three-year, $1.8 million project, directed by engineering professors Thomas Kuech and Max Lagally, will investigate ways to integrate various compound semiconductor devices-multi-material devices that send, process and receive information-with silicon.

While semiconductor devices made from materials such as gallium arsenide are optically sensitive and operate faster, silicon's strength is computational power. "We hope to demonstrate that by combining the features of gallium arsenide with the features of silicon, we can get an advance over either material," says Lagally, a professor of materials science and engineering. "We call that increasing the functionality of silicon."

Funded by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, the researchers will collaborate with electrical engineers from Georgia Technological Institute, who will grow and synthesize the compound semiconductors. They will also work with an expert on structural analysis from State University of New York-Albany. Lagally will examine the project's fundamental science issues, while Kuech, a chemical engineering professor, studies the interfacial chemistry associated with bonding compound semiconductors and silicon.

The project focuses on wireless communication-the cellular telephone-as a way of starting to investigate processes on an intimate microlevel, says Kuech. The results could have an immediate impact in defense agencies where battlefield communication increasingly relies on wireless technologies. But the research also could translate to computers that quickly send mountains of data using optics instead of cables, or chemical and biological sensors in which one component integrates the optical emitters, detectors, micropumps and processors.

"Materials integration is a huge area right now," says Kuech. "What people have done is tried to do it perhaps on a much smaller scale or just tried to put a single device somewhere, and have developed a lot of processes associated with that." He says one of the group's goals, which researchers have yet to accomplish, is to integrate materials on the system level.

Combining different materials with a variety of properties and structures is the real challenge, says Lagally. "The idea of integration is to say, 'Is there some way we can intimately put these materials together so that it almost looks like one material,'" he says.

And through this seamless transition between materials, even the bonds will be functional, enabling researchers to use the entire device, says Kuech. "Functionalizing the interfacial layers is something people haven't done before in this context," he says.

http://www.wisc.edu

About: University of Wisconsin-Madison
In achievement and prestige, the University of Wisconsin-Madison has long been recognized as one of America’s great universities. A public, land-grant institution, UW-Madison offers a complete spectrum of liberal arts studies, professional programs and student activities. Many of its programs are hailed as world leaders in instruction, research and public service.

The university traces its roots to a clause in the Wisconsin Constitution, which decreed that the state should have a prominent public university. In 1848, Nelson Dewey, Wisconsin’s first governor, signed the act that formally created the university, and its first class, with 17 students, met in a Madison school building on February 5, 1849.

From those humble beginnings, the university has grown into a large, diverse community, with about 40,000 students enrolled each year. These students represent every state in the nation, as well as countries from around the globe, making for a truly international population.

UW-Madison is the oldest and largest campus in the University of Wisconsin System, a statewide network of 13 comprehensive universities, 13 freshman-sophomore transfer colleges and an extension service. One of two doctorate-granting universities in the system, UW-Madison’s specific mission is to provide "a learning environment in which faculty, staff and students can discover, examine critically, preserve and transmit the knowledge, wisdom and values that will help insure the survival of this and future generations and improve the quality of life for all."

The university achieves these ends through innovative programs of research, teaching and public service. Throughout its history, UW-Madison has sought to bring the power of learning into the daily lives of its students through innovations such as residential learning communities and service-learning opportunities. Students also participate freely in research, which has led to life-improving inventions from more fuel-efficient engines to cutting-edge genetic therapies.

Students, faculty and staff are motivated by a tradition known as the "Wisconsin Idea," described by UW President Charles Van Hise in 1904 as the compelling need to carry "the beneficent influence of the university ... to every home in the state." The Wisconsin Idea permeates the university’s work and helps forge close working relationships among university faculty and students and the state’s industries and government.

More News:
  • For December 2000
  • From University of Wisconsin-Madison
  • For University