First molybdenite chip for improved miniaturisation, flexible electronics Electronics News

École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) researchers have made the world’s first molybdenite chip showing it can surpass the physical limits of silicon.

According to the scientists, molybdenite is better suited to improved miniaturisation, electricity consumption, and mechanical flexibility compared to conventional silicon.

The researchers built an initial prototype, putting from two to six serial transistors in place. This showed the possibility of basic binary logic operations on a molybdenite chip, and opened the way to a larger chip.

This development follows work in early 2011 where the same lab unveiled the electronics potential of molybdenum disulfide (MoS2), a relatively abundant, naturally occurring mineral.

Molybdenum disulfide has semiconducting properties and a structure that make it an ideal material for use in transistors. It competes directly with silicon but also rivals up-and-coming semiconductor poster child graphene.

The main advantage of MoS2 is that it allows further miniaturisation of transistors.

It has not been possible up to this point to make layers of silicon less than two nanometers thick, because of the risk of initiating a chemical reaction that would oxidise the surface and compromise its electronic properties.

Molybdenite can be worked in layers only three atoms thick, making it possible to build chips that are at least three times smaller. At this scale, the material is still very stable and conduction is easy to control.

MoS2 transistors can be turned on and off much more quickly, and also put into a more complete standby mode.

Molybdenite is on a par with silicon in terms of its ability to amplify electronic signals, with an output signal that is four times stronger than the incoming signal.

Molybdenite also has mechanical properties that make it interesting as a possible material for use in flexible electronics, such as eventually in the design of flexible sheets of chips.

First molybdenite chip for improved miniaturisation, flexible electronics Electronics News