| The
Office of Naval Research has awarded a three-year, $320,000
grant to Drs. Seong Jin Koh and Choong-Un Kim of The
University of Texas at Arlington’s Materials Science
& Engineering Program and the Nanotechnology Research
& Teaching Facility to develop a technology for
wafer-scale fabrication of single-electron memory devices.
Most memory chips currently
in use require millions of electrons to store each
bit of information, but single-electron memory devices
use only a few tens of electrons to store a single
bit, resulting in ultra-low power consumption and
ultra-high density memories.
Although the potential benefit
of single electron devices is clear, their fabrication
technology, i.e., reliable production of addressable
devices, is in its infancy. Combining wet chemistry,
nanotechnology and CMOS fabrication technology, Drs.
Koh and Kim will address several of critical fabrication
issues that have hindered single electron device implementation.
Their new fabrication technology
will provide a foundation for building reliable and
practical single-electron devices that have two important
merits: ultra-low power consumption and ultra-high
sensitivity. These attributes are crucial to devices
for the U.S. Navy, such as long-endurance unmanned
aerial vehicles, communication devices and remote
biological and chemical sensing units. Ultra-sensitive,
molecular-level sensors could play a critical role
in detecting battlefield hazards and combating bio/chemical
terrorism.
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