Researchers at the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Argonne National Laboratory achieved a breakthrough with a new microelectronic material. In a new study published in Advanced Materials, the Argonne team proposed a new kind of “redox gating” technique to control the movement of electrons in and out of a semiconducting material.
“Redox” is a chemical reaction causing a transfer of electrons. Microelectronic devices typically rely on an electric ”field effect” to control the flow of electrons to operate. In the experiment, the scientists designed a device that could regulate the flow of electrons from one end to another by applying a voltage — essentially, a kind of pressure that pushes electricity — across a material that acted as an electron gate. When the voltage reached a certain threshold, roughly half of a volt, the material would begin to inject electrons through the gate from a source redox material into a channel material.
CREDIT: (Image by Argonne National Laboratory.)
By using the voltage to modify the flow of electrons, the semiconducting device could act like a transistor, switching between more conducting and more insulating states. Redox gating allows for the modulation of the electron flow by an enormous amount, even at low voltages, for greater power efficiency. Controlling the electronic properties of a material is advantageous when seeking emergent properties beyond conventional devices.
The strategy could also be useful for creating new quantum materials whose phases could be manipulated at low power, and the redox gating technique may extend across versatile, functional semiconductors and low-dimensional quantum materials composed of sustainable elements.
