MIT physicists have created a transistor using a ferroelectric material that could revolutionize electronics. The material— an innovation of the same core team and colleagues in 2021— is ultrathin and separates positive and negative charges into different layers.
Led by Pablo Jarillo-Herrero, the Cecil and Ida Green Professor of Physics, and Raymond Ashoori, professor of Physics, the team has demonstrated that their novel transistor surpasses current industry standards in several key aspects.
At the center of the new transistor is the ferroelectric material stacked in a parallel configuration, an arrangement that does not occur naturally.
When an electric field is applied, the layers slightly slide over each other and alter the positions of boron and nitrogen atoms, dramatically changing the material’s electronic properties .
“In my lab we primarily do fundamental physics. This is one of the first, and perhaps most dramatic, examples of how very basic science has led to something that could have a major impact on applications,” Jarillo-Herrero told MIT News .
The new transistor stands out from conventional electronics with an impressive array of capabilities .
Of particular note is its ability to switch between positive and negative charges— essentially zeros and ones— at nanosecond speeds. This rapid switching ability is key for high-performance computing and data processing.
Even more remarkable is the transistor’s durability. According to the team, the transistor exhibited no signs of degradation even after an astounding 100 billion switches. In comparison, conventional flash memory devices are plagued with wear-out issues and require sophisticated methods to distribute read and write operations across the chip.
Additionally, the ultrathin transistor— measuring only billionths of a meter in thickness— opens up possibilities for much denser computer memory storage, as well as, more energy-efficient transistors.
Future prospects
“We made the material, and together 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, highlighting the synergy between the different research groups. “That was very exciting.”
Despite its seemingly limitless potential, challenges remain to be solved before the technology can be widely adopted. “We made a single transistor as a demonstration. If people could grow these materials on the wafer scale, we could create many, many more,” Yasuda told MIT News .
The research team is also exploring triggering ferroelectricity with alternative methods like optical pulses and testing the limits of the material’s switching capabilities among other possibilities. The conventional production method for these new ferroelectrics is complex and not suitable for mass manufacturing.
“There are a few problems. But if you solve them, this material fits in so many ways into potential future electronics. It’s very exciting,” Ashoori concluded.
“When I think of my whole career in physics, this is the work that I think 10 to 20 years from now could change the world.”
Details of the team’s research were published in the journal Science .
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