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discovered_01_2015 - The Future of Electronics

discovered 01.15 FOCUS WWW.HZDR.DE // Modern microelectronics is a divided field: it either uses tiny electric currents, as in a computer processor, or magnetic fields on the built-in hard drive. The Helmholtz Junior Research Group on ‘Functional Materials’ uses manganese doped semiconductors to bring the two worlds together. This might eventually lead to computer chips with additional magnetic switches. For half a century, semiconductors have been a sort of engine driving the global economy. They can be found in almost any appliance that has helped advance the everyday technological revolutions of the past decades: television sets and computers, cell phones and solar cells. The functioning of such semiconductor elements has always been the same. Materials such as phosphorus or aluminum, carbon or tellurium are implanted into materials such as silicon or gallium-arsenide, which are basically non-conductive. The foreign atoms in the crystal lattice change the electric properties. This way, a small electric current from the outside can switch such a semiconducting element on or off. Whether it is in the processor of a computer or the image sensor of a digital camera, the chips always work according to this principle of tiny electric switches. That is exactly what Shengqiang Zhou and his junior research group at HZDR are looking to change. The researchers already successfully introduced ferromagnetism into semiconductors in addition to these electric switches. Their goal is to open up whole new potentials for applications. _TEXT . Roland Knauer THE FUTURE OF ELECTRONICS PLAYING POOL WITH IONS: Shengqiang Zhou likes to compare shooting ions into a material’s surface to playing pool billiards. Photo: André Forner

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