Moving away from silicon technology

Transparent high-performance electronic devices made with new nano-structured materials that substitute silicon open the door to a new, greener era for technology. 

Silicon, the conventional semiconductor used to build up electronics, is processed at very high temperature –over one thousand Celsius degrees- and it is difficult to recycle.With the aim of facilitating the sustainable and competitive manufacture of new displays with low-cost technology, scientists of the European project MULTIFLEOXIDES have developed new ceramic thin films containing amorphous or nano-structured oxides processed at low temperature to be used as transparent materials, conducting, semiconducting or insulating components in rigid and flexible electronic devices. 

“The challenge is that we use zinc, which is a ceramic good-behaviour material, with gallium and indium and mix it within oxide to make new materials with electronic performances as good as silicon, something that was never tried before” says Rodrigo Martins, director of CEMOP (Center of Excellence in Microelectronics Optoelectronics and Processes) at the Portuguese University-Enterprise association UNINOVA (Institute for the Development of New Technologies), president of the European Materials Research Society and coordinator of the MULTIFLEOXIDES project. 

Source and more details:

http://www.youris.com/Nano/Electronic/Moving_Away_From_Silicon_Technology.kl