Fabrication Technologies & Electronic Devices
EMTERC
has a long history of the
investigation and development of electronic devices and their
fabrication; and
it is with this in mind that the Centre is moving forward into areas
that both
builds upon this history and which explores novel methods of
fabrication and
device development.
Emerging memory
devices
The demand for
more efficient and faster memory structures is greater today than ever
before.
The efficiency of memory structures is measured in terms of storage
capacity
and the speed of functioning. However, the production cost of such
configurations is the natural constraint on how much can be achieved.
Organic
memory devices (OMDs) provide an ideal solution, in being inexpensive,
and at
the same time promising high performance:
Work carried out
within EMTERC in OMDs is at the leading edge of their development and
continues
to be a vibrant, developing stream of research.
Investigating the
electrical charging mechanisms of gold nanoparticles for use in novel
memory
applications
Low Temperature Large Area
Electronics
A
great deal of work has been
done within the Centre on low temperature processes for the synthesis
of
electronic materials for large area and flexible electronic
applications, e.g.
thin film transistors (TFTs); and progress continues to be made in this
area including:
The
development of an in-house
deposition system for thin-film materials
Extensive work on the fabrication of
TFTs incorporating zinc
oxide.
Liquid phase deposition of insulating
materials
Synthesis of organic polymer layers
as high performance
dielectrics
Analysis of novel high-k materials
Self-assembly
The
possibilities within the self-assembly
paradigm could lead to the development of virtually any functional
device or
system. An area that is ideal to exploit using this method is the
synthesis of
nanomaterials using interdisciplinary research methods.
This
is a growing area of
interest within the Centre where in addition to materials synthesis,
the
fundamental electronic, optical and other physical properties are
analysed. In
this manner - and together with investigating potential methods for
organisation of such materials - new areas at the interface of
different
disciplines can be explored for application in e.g. nanoelectronics and
nanomedicine.