Volitronic can "extend" the law of Moore
For the last ten years, scientists around the world have been looking for a replacement for traditional electronics based on the use of an electron charge, seeking to reduce the energy consumption and heat dissipation of electronic devices and increase their speed. According to scientists from the University of New York at Buffalo, Volitronic can become a promising area for research in this area.
/ Flickr / Paul Hudson / CC
Some semiconductors have several minima of the allowed energy of conduction electrons, which physicists call valleys. The presence of such valleys allows you to encode information by placing an electron in one of them. Separately, two valleys correspond to one bit of information.
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But the two valleys, in which the spins of the electrons can take on different values, are a two-bit construct that already encodes four values. Volitronic promises an increase in speed, high noise immunity and lower power consumption (for more information on volitronic, read here , here and here ). However, the creation of such devices in practice is hampered by the complexity of controlling electrons when placed in valleys.
The problem is that the energy levels in such semiconductors are the same. There are methods for level separation using a strong external magnetic field due to the Zeeman effect, but the difference being formed is extremely difficult to distinguish. But a team of scientists from the University of New York at Buffalo, led by Professor Hao Zeng, has developed a new way to divide energy levels between valleys in a two-dimensional semiconductor.
In order to increase the difference between energy levels, scientists have developed a new way to separate levels. They created a heterostructure with a 10-nm ferromagnetic europium sulfide (EuS) substrate and a monolayer of tungsten diselenide (WSe2). Since the substrate creates a constant magnetic field, the energy levels of tungsten diselenide are separated. By changing the substrate magnetization, one can control the energy levels in WSe2, as well as the polarization of the spin of the electrons.
Schematic representation of a monolayer of tungsten diselenide on a ferromagnetic substrate
Scientists have measured energy levels using the reflection of light from the material. By the change in the energy of reflected photons, the difference between the energy levels was measured. Scientists noted that the new method made it possible to increase the difference between energy levels by 10 times compared with previous solutions. Moreover, since after the magnetization the difference in the energy of the valleys remains at the same level, scientists assume that in the future the development will be used to create non-volatile memory.
Note that the experiment itself was carried out at a temperature of 7 K; therefore, it is not yet possible to speak about the commercial implementation of the technology. However, this is the first step. There is a reason why scientists are optimistic. Moore's law, which states that the number of transistors in integrated circuits doubles every two years, has reached its fundamental limit.
“Our work brings volitronic one step closer to overcoming this obstacle,” concludes Zheng.
PS A few more materials from our blog:
/ Flickr / Paul Hudson / CCSome semiconductors have several minima of the allowed energy of conduction electrons, which physicists call valleys. The presence of such valleys allows you to encode information by placing an electron in one of them. Separately, two valleys correspond to one bit of information.
')
But the two valleys, in which the spins of the electrons can take on different values, are a two-bit construct that already encodes four values. Volitronic promises an increase in speed, high noise immunity and lower power consumption (for more information on volitronic, read here , here and here ). However, the creation of such devices in practice is hampered by the complexity of controlling electrons when placed in valleys.
The problem is that the energy levels in such semiconductors are the same. There are methods for level separation using a strong external magnetic field due to the Zeeman effect, but the difference being formed is extremely difficult to distinguish. But a team of scientists from the University of New York at Buffalo, led by Professor Hao Zeng, has developed a new way to divide energy levels between valleys in a two-dimensional semiconductor.
In order to increase the difference between energy levels, scientists have developed a new way to separate levels. They created a heterostructure with a 10-nm ferromagnetic europium sulfide (EuS) substrate and a monolayer of tungsten diselenide (WSe2). Since the substrate creates a constant magnetic field, the energy levels of tungsten diselenide are separated. By changing the substrate magnetization, one can control the energy levels in WSe2, as well as the polarization of the spin of the electrons.
Schematic representation of a monolayer of tungsten diselenide on a ferromagnetic substrate
Scientists have measured energy levels using the reflection of light from the material. By the change in the energy of reflected photons, the difference between the energy levels was measured. Scientists noted that the new method made it possible to increase the difference between energy levels by 10 times compared with previous solutions. Moreover, since after the magnetization the difference in the energy of the valleys remains at the same level, scientists assume that in the future the development will be used to create non-volatile memory.
Note that the experiment itself was carried out at a temperature of 7 K; therefore, it is not yet possible to speak about the commercial implementation of the technology. However, this is the first step. There is a reason why scientists are optimistic. Moore's law, which states that the number of transistors in integrated circuits doubles every two years, has reached its fundamental limit.
“Our work brings volitronic one step closer to overcoming this obstacle,” concludes Zheng.
PS A few more materials from our blog:
- Backup & Recovery: in-line and smart deduplication, snapshots and secondary storage
- Data center cooling technologies
- “The Future of TV Broadcasts”: Cloud TV and beyond
- How to secure a Linux system: 10 tips
- A bit about VPN: A brief overview of software implementations
- A selection of materials about clouds, data centers and the development of services
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/328034/
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