An international team of researchers has suggested that a new method for producing 2D oxide materials could be the key to enabling high-speed electronics in the future. The ability to create increasingly small transistors has historically driven advances in computing power, but the limits of commonly used silicon materials have almost been reached.
Joshua Robinson, who is a professor of materials science and engineering at Penn State, has explained that shrinking the distance electrons need to travel between two points can speed up the performance of electronic devices like transistors. However, the properties of 3D materials such as silicon change when they are reduced to nanometer size, so there is a need to explore new materials like 2D materials.
The research team, led by Furkan Turker, a graduate student in the Department of Materials Sciences, used confinement heteroepitaxy (CHet) to produce 2D oxides, which have unique properties that can function as an extremely thin insulating layer between electrically conducting materials.
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