Circuits Better with Purer Nanotubes
Mark_Uplanguage writes "PhysicsWeb has an article on improving techniques for the use of carbon nanotubes in electronic circuits. From the article, 'Physicists in the US have developed a new method for making electronic circuits with carbon nanotubes. The technique involves dipping semiconductor chips into a purified solution of nanotubes, rather than the conventional method of growing the nanotubes directly onto the chips. The resulting devices are much better than those produced by other approaches.'"
what the hell does it mean though ?
p g
http://physicsweb.org/objects/news/9/8/2/050802.j
does any one have a link to an article that's more than just a blurb? What are the applications? How long before we can built Logic out of these chips? According to TFA, all they've managed to create so far is an FET...
and if you see me strut, remind me of what left this outlaw torn...
... press releases about breakthroughs in nanotech especially in the carbon nanotube/semiconductor field. One should know that the US, EU, Korea and Japan throw an unprecendented amount of money into research in this field right now. And as the yanks have set the success metrics, it means all the researchers have to do is churn out press releases and file patents :-)
So, don't hold your breath re dipping, licking and roasting electronic circuits with CNT's.
(a) No, these transistors are no better. If you check the nature article, the contacts to the transistors are still lousy (technically, they are still schottky and not ohmic). And contact resistance is too high.
(b) No, they don't really get the nanotubes where they want as claimed in the article. The alignment using this technique is still worse (will require substantial effort to make it better).
(c) One of the bigger drawbacks which was conveniently ignored was the fact that they still cannnot control the number of tubes between the two contacts. So it can be 1 or 2 or 5 and so your current or other properties will vary that much. This technique doesn't make this problem any better.
(d) Last but not the least, no comment about the role of oxygen. All other researchers struggle due to hysteresis behavior, these devices look similar to them.