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Joe_in_GA
You don't know much about Georgia Tech. Dr. Nazanin Bassiri-Gharb is professor ...
docdivakar
At the outset, this article appears to be an effort of over-enthusiasm to get ...
Ferroelectrics fabbed on plastic
R Colin Johnson
7/19/2011 2:20 PM EDT
PORTLAND, Ore.—Ferroelectric memories, energy harvesting arrays, sensors and actuators could soon be fabricated on plastic substrates, according to researchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology, who recently demonstrated a new low-temperature process using an atomic-force microscope (AFM).
Using a process called thermochemical nano-lithography, a team led by Georgia Tech professor NazaninBassiri-Gharb has discovered a low-temperature process for depositing ferroelectric materials on plastic substrates. The group, which also includes postdoctoral fellow Suenne Kim, professor Elisa Riedo, and graduate assistant Yaser Bastani, recently demonstrated nanoscale ferroelectric structures that could be used to fabricated ferroelectric devices on cheap polymers.
Using the heated tip of an AFM, the group fabricated ferroelectric structures suitable for semiconductor devices or MEMS-like sensors and actuators, including wires just 30 nanometers wide and spheres just 10 nanometers in diameter. For ferroelectric memories, the group estimates that densities as high as 200 gigabytes per square inch could be fabricated with their process.
The research was performed in cooperation with the University of Illinois (Urbana-Champaign) and the University of Nebraska (Lincoln). Funding was provided by the National Science Foundation and the U.S. Department of Energy.
Georgia Tech postdoctoral fellow Suenne Kim (left) holds a sample of flexible polyimide substrate holding ferroelectric nanostructures, produced in the lab of professor Nazanin Bassiri-Gharb (center) while graduate assistant Yaser Bastani observes. Photo credit: Gary Meek, Georgia Tech.
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elPresidente
7/19/2011 11:25 PM EDT
Cheap plastic? You will earn a PhD having worked out the economics and pragmatism of that one? An AFM, writing one location at a time on a 1 inch square piece of plastic, at 1ms between locations (an awfully fast servo) and zero time to place the material on the tip, assuming perfect planarity and locus spacings, with zero defects or any impurities at all in the plastic, and 200GBYTES, would take over 6,000 YEARS to write. At $6/hour for a post doc to oversee the AFM, how much will that memory "on cheap plastic" cost (don't forget to add in the cost of 6,000,000 pizzas and 20,000,000 Dr Peppers)? Where will Moore's law be by the time you finish the first and only device? Talk about your work as researchers and let the ENGINEERS figure out how to turn it into something useful and pragmatic and what exactly that would be - you just denigrate your credibility and marvellous accomplishment with such application drivel.
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resistion
7/19/2011 11:41 PM EDT
It's kind of doublespeak, they mentioned the density rather than the full capacity. Maybe they intend a small array of that density (57 nm pitch).
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resistion
7/20/2011 7:45 AM EDT
even this is not a big deal since today's 2x nm memory is already doing this much better
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Joe_in_GA
7/28/2011 12:00 PM EDT
You don't know much about Georgia Tech. Dr. Nazanin Bassiri-Gharb is professor of mechanical engineering specializing in microelectronic mechanical systems (MEMS). She was formerly the Senior Engineer at QUALCOMM MEMS Technologies, Inc.
Like most research at Georgia Tech, this will likely continue to be developed either thru other sponsored research or spun-off thru Georgia Techs technology company incubation. It is highly unlikely an AFM would be used for production but it is a good research tool for a lab. I have no idea what the production technology will be but I'm betting Dr. Bassiri-Gharb has some ideas.
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BobbieSmith
7/20/2011 6:53 AM EDT
I was interested up until I read AFM. Why do academics feel the need to justify their work by ending articles with grandiose suggestions for how the work could be applied to real products?
Why not just say the truth. This is a novel new method of patterning ferroelectric materials that we will employ for the next 6-10 papers/conferences and when the current batch of graduate students/post-docs leave, and we have extracted all the grant money we can from this topic, our study of this will end.
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Luis Sanchez
7/20/2011 5:03 PM EDT
The truth is always better but saying that the study of something will end isn't necessarily that the effort was worthless. Many of the scientific knowledge achieved is lika a small brick from your home. What is a small brick worth? less than a buck, but when all the bricks are put together to make a wall and then four walls with a ceilling and then make up a big building... that is science. Is a huge building in which we shelter our lives and in which we live better. Let's see if in the near future this discovery has an application... to be honest... I'm skeptical also.
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docdivakar
7/25/2011 5:56 PM EDT
At the outset, this article appears to be an effort of over-enthusiasm to get the news of their accomplishments out there, whether it has practical value or not! I agree this should be left to some engineers to make it practical.
MP Divakar
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