A new breakthrough! Electronic components that do not require semiconductor materials are invented
A team at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology has made an important advance in the field of electronics manufacturing: They have used full 3D printing technology to produce active electronic devices that do not require semiconductor materials. The groundbreaking research, published in the journal Virtual and Physical Prototyping, opens up new avenues for future electronics manufacturing.
The team printed these semiconductorless devices using an ordinary 3D printer and low-cost, biodegradable materials. Although the performance of these devices is not yet comparable to that of traditional semiconductor transistors, they can perform some basic control tasks, such as adjusting the speed of electric motors. The new technology uses less energy and produces less waste, reducing not only production costs but also environmental impact.
During the experiment, the team found that polymer filaments doped with copper nanoparticles had a special phenomenon: when passed through a high current, the material showed a significant increase in resistance; Once the power supply is stopped, its resistance quickly returns to the initial state. This property allows the material to be used as a switching element, similar to a transistor in a semiconductor. The team tried polymer filaments with a variety of different dopants, including carbon, carbon nanotubes, and graphene, but only the filaments containing copper nanoparticles showed self-resetting ability.
Based on this phenomenon, the team believes that the thermal effect caused by the current may cause the copper particles to spread out, increasing the resistance; After cooling, the copper particles reaggregate and the resistance decreases. In addition, the transition of the polymer matrix from crystalline state to amorphous state and back again may also contribute to the change in resistance.
Using this principle, the team developed a new logic gate made of filaments made of copper-doped polymers that can control resistance changes by adjusting the input voltage.
In addition, the addition of other functional particles to the polymer filaments allows for more complex and diverse applications. This result shows the possibility of small enterprises producing simple intelligent hardware on their own in the future.
Logic gate is the basic unit of digital logic circuit, "or" "and" "not" or "not" and "not", any complex logic circuit can be composed of these logic gates. The transistor can realize the switch control of the output current, and realize multiple logic gate functions through different circuit configurations. This time, the research team successfully used full 3D printing technology to produce active electronic device components that do not require semiconductor materials. Although the performance is not enough to compete with transistors, polymer filaments doped with copper nanoparticles already have basic control functions, and this material is low cost, less waste, or can become a "flat" transistor.
