ORNL finding could help electronics industry enter new phase
Thursday, 25. June 2009, 07:15:53
Electronic devices of the future could be smaller, faster, more powerful and consume less energy because of a discovery by researchers at the Department of Energy's Oak Ridge National Laboratory.
The key to the finding, published in Science, involves a method to measure intrinsic conducting properties of ferroelectric materials, which for decades have held tremendous promise but have eluded experimental proof. Now, however, ORNL Wigner Fellow Peter Maksymovych and co-authors Stephen Jesse, Art Baddorf and Sergei Kalinin at the Center for Nanophase Materials Sciences believe they may be on a path that will see barriers tumble.
"For years, the challenge has been to develop a nanoscale material that can act as a switch to store binary information," Maksymovych said. "We are excited by our discovery and the prospect of finally being able to exploit the long-conjectured bi-stable electrical conductivity of ferroelectric materials.
"Harnessing this functionality will ultimately enable smart and ultra-dense memory technology."
Source: http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2009-06/drnl-ofc061709.php
The key to the finding, published in Science, involves a method to measure intrinsic conducting properties of ferroelectric materials, which for decades have held tremendous promise but have eluded experimental proof. Now, however, ORNL Wigner Fellow Peter Maksymovych and co-authors Stephen Jesse, Art Baddorf and Sergei Kalinin at the Center for Nanophase Materials Sciences believe they may be on a path that will see barriers tumble.
"For years, the challenge has been to develop a nanoscale material that can act as a switch to store binary information," Maksymovych said. "We are excited by our discovery and the prospect of finally being able to exploit the long-conjectured bi-stable electrical conductivity of ferroelectric materials.
"Harnessing this functionality will ultimately enable smart and ultra-dense memory technology."
Source: http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2009-06/drnl-ofc061709.php
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