By Peter Weiss
Nanotechnologies for electronics come along all the time, but they’re typically far from ready for the factory floor. Now, independent teams of researchers in Sweden and in Korea have combined a promising nanotechnology with conventional microelectronics to create novel transistors that perform better than most and that are expected to be easy to manufacture.
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At Lund University in Sweden, Lars-Erik Wernersson and his colleagues have made transistors in which a solid layer of material is replaced by an airy forest of nanowires (SN: 5/22/04, p. 325: Branching Out: Semiconducting nanotrees could boost electronics). Sheathing the lower third of each nanowire with a control electrode yielded transistors that waste less power than conventional designs do, says Lund team leader Lars Samuelson.