For future chips, smaller must also be better
2010-10-06
(Press-News.org) Washington, D.C. (October 5, 2010) -- The explosion of portable communication devices that we enjoy today -- such as cell and smart phones, Bluetooth hands-free units, and wireless Internet networks -- has resulted in part from the development of a wide variety of integrated circuits that create, process and receive the microwave frequencies on which the communication is based.
Continuing demand for higher performance over a wider range of frequencies has shrunk the physical size of circuits and fueled the development of new materials in thin-film forms, tested in detail over the entire microwave spectrum (1-50GHz).
In the August 9 edition of the technical journal Applied Physics Letters, published by the American Institute of Physics, two teams of researchers from China and France report success in making and testing tiny high-frequency capacitors made from a complex manmade mineral: barium strontium titanate (BST). By introducing an ultrathin (1.2 nanometer) titanium oxide seed layer, the researchers made thin BST films that exhibited excellent microwave properties up to 40 GHz.
"Our recent achievements certainly pave the way for realizing high-frequency microwave applications using thin-film BST capacitors," said Prof. Xianlin Dong from the Shanghai Institute of Ceramics, Chinese Academy of Sciences.
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The article, "Microwave properties of epitaxial (111)-oriented Ba0.6Sr0.4TiO3 thin films on Al2O3 (0001) up to 40 GHz" by Lihui Yang, Freddy Ponchel, Genshui Wang, Denis Remiens, Jean francois Legier, Daniel Chateigner, and Xianlin Dong appears in the journal Applied Physics Letters.
This research is supported by grants from China's National Basic Research Program, the Shanghai Rising-Star Program, and the Hundred Talent Project of the Chinese Academy of Sciences.
ABOUT APPLIED PHYSICS LETTERS
Applied Physics Letters, published by the American Institute of Physics, features concise, up-to-date reports on significant new findings in applied physics. Emphasizing rapid dissemination of key data and new physical insights, Applied Physics Letters offers prompt publication of new experimental and theoretical papers bearing on applications of physics phenomena to all branches of science, engineering, and modern technology. Content is published online daily, collected into weekly online and printed issues (52 issues per year). See: http://apl.aip.org/
ABOUT AIP
The American Institute of Physics is a federation of 10 physical science societies representing more than 135,000 scientists, engineers, and educators and is one of the world's largest publishers of scientific information in the physical sciences. Offering partnership solutions for scientific societies and for similar organizations in science and engineering, AIP is a leader in the field of electronic publishing of scholarly journals. AIP publishes 12 journals (some of which are the most highly cited in their respective fields), two magazines, including its flagship publication Physics Today; and the AIP Conference Proceedings series. Its online publishing platform Scitation hosts nearly two million articles from more than 185 scholarly journals and other publications of 28 learned society publishers.
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For the complete business office feature with individual company rankings, go to
dx.doi.org/10.1126/science.opms.r1000097.
The article will be posted at this URL address the evening of 7 October 2010.
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[Press-News.org] For future chips, smaller must also be better
