News tagged with semiconductors
New transistors: An alternative to silicon and better than graphene
Smaller and more energy-efficient electronic chips could be made using molybdenite. In an article appearing online January 30 in the journal Nature Nanotechnology, EPFL's Laboratory of Nanoscale Electronics and St ...
Jan 30, 2011 |
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Seeing quantum mechanics with the naked eye
(PhysOrg.com) -- A Cambridge team have built a semiconductor chip that converts electrons into a quantum state that emits light but is large enough to see by eye. Because their quantum superfluid is simply ...
Jan 09, 2012 |
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Scientists build world's first anti-laser
More than 50 years after the invention of the laser, scientists at Yale University have built the world's first anti-laser, in which incoming beams of light interfere with one another in such a way as to perfectly ...
Feb 17, 2011 |
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Solar power without solar cells: A hidden magnetic effect of light could make it possible
(PhysOrg.com) -- A dramatic and surprising magnetic effect of light discovered by University of Michigan researchers could lead to solar power without traditional semiconductor-based solar cells.
Apr 14, 2011 |
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New plastics can conduct electricity
(PhysOrg.com) -- A newly discovered technique makes it possible to create a whole new array of plastics with metallic or even superconducting properties.
Feb 22, 2011 |
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Scientists design solar cells that exceed the conventional light-trapping limit
(PhysOrg.com) -- The best performing solar cells are those that are thick enough to absorb light from the entire solar spectrum, while the cheapest solar cells are thin ones, since they require less, and potentially ...
Jan 20, 2012 |
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New science suggests we might soon be able to mix computers and neurons
(PhysOrg.com) -- Graduate students at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, led by Minrui Yu and Yu Huang, have published an ACS Nano paper, "Semiconductor Nanomembrane Tubes: Three-Dimensional Confinement for Co ...
Nanotechnology / Bio & Medicine
Mar 22, 2011 |
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Tiny heat engine may be world's smallest
(PhysOrg.com) -- Steam engines, combustion engines, and diesel engines are all different types of heat engines, which operate by converting heat energy into mechanical work. Although heat engines have existed ...
Feb 02, 2011 |
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Solving the solar cell power conversion dilemma
(PhysOrg.com) -- "There is a lot of interest in creating more efficient solar cells that are also simpler than many of the designs common now," Wladek Walukiewicz tells PhysOrg.com. "We think that, throug ...
Jan 24, 2011 |
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Physicists build highly efficient 'no-waste' laser
A team of University of California, San Diego researchers has built the smallest room-temperature nanolaser to date, as well as an even more startling device: a highly efficient, "thresholdless" laser that ...
Feb 08, 2012 |
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Japan collab transmits record data speeds on terahertz waves
(PhysOrg.com) -- Researchers from Japan-based semiconductor manufacturer Rohm, together with a team from Osaka University, have come up with a chip that, in experiments, has achieved a wireless data transmission ...
Nov 25, 2011 |
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Discovery of a 'dark state' could increase maximum theoretical efficiency of solar cells from 31 to 44 percent
The efficiency of conventional solar cells could be significantly increased, according to new research on the mechanisms of solar energy conversion led by chemist Xiaoyang Zhu at The University of Texas at Austin.
Dec 15, 2011 |
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New kind of optical fiber developed
(PhysOrg.com) -- A team of scientists led by John Badding, a professor of chemistry at Penn State University, has developed the very first optical fiber made with a core of zinc selenide -- a light-yellow ...
Feb 25, 2011 |
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Toward faster transistors: New physical phenomenon could lead to increases in computers' clock speed
In the 1980s and ’90s, competition in the computer industry was all about "clock speed" — how many megahertz, and ultimately gigahertz, a chip could boast. But clock speeds stalled out almost 10 ...
May 13, 2011 |
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Breaking Kasha's rule: Scientists find unique luminescence in tetrapod nanocrystals
Observation of a scientific rule being broken can sometimes lead to new knowledge and important applications. Such would seem to be the case when scientists with the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE)'s Lawrence ...
Jul 01, 2011 |
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Semiconductor
A semiconductor is a material that has a resistivity value between that of a conductor and an insulator. The conductivity of a semiconductor material can be varied under an external electrical field. Devices made from semiconductor materials are the foundation of modern electronics, including radio, computers, telephones, and many other devices. Semiconductor devices include the transistor, solar cells, many kinds of diodes including the light-emitting diode, the silicon controlled rectifier, and digital and analog integrated circuits. Solar photovoltaic panels are large semiconductor devices that directly convert light energy into electrical energy. In a metallic conductor, current is carried by the flow of electrons. In semiconductors, current can be carried either by the flow of electrons or by the flow of positively-charged "holes" in the electron structure of the material.
Silicon is used to create most semiconductors commercially. Dozens of other materials are used, including germanium, gallium arsenide, and silicon carbide. A pure semiconductor is often called an “intrinsic” semiconductor. The conductivity, or ability to conduct, of semiconductor material can be drastically changed by adding other elements, called “impurities” to the melted intrinsic material and then allowing the melt to solidify into a new and different crystal. This process is called "doping".
For more information about Semiconductor, read the full article at
Wikipedia.
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