Southampton Lights the Way for Electronic Devices

Researchers from the Optoelectronics Research Centre (ORC) at the University of Southampton have demonstrated how glass can be manipulated to create electronic devices that will be smaller, faster and consume less power.

 Working in collaboration with the Advanced Technology Institute at the University of Surrey and the University of Cambridge, ORC scientists Dr Jin Yao and Dr Behrad Gholipour have made prototype devices* that use light to bring together different computing functions into one component. By successfully doping a chalcogenide glass, in this case a material based on germanium and selenium and forming a multilayer structure with electrical contacts, Dr Gholipour was able to show the same switching behaviour seen in silicon transistor, but in a device made entirely from glass. 

 Dr Gholipour explains: “Non-equilibrium doping within chalcogenide glasses enables a unique information processing platform within one material system. This allows traditional electronic computing, along with memory functionality, which opens up the optical spectrum, from the visible far into the infrared, for next generation optoelectronic and fully optical computing applications.”

This work builds on Dr Gholipour’s PhD work for which he won the UK Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Councils (EPSRC) prestigious ICT Pioneer prize in the area of information in 2011. 

 Using similar materials, Dr Yao formed long strips of different types of chalcogenides, connecting each end together to form a chain of materials: “When one end of the structure is hotter than the other, as might occur near the battery of your phone or computer, a voltage is produced, through a process known as the thermoelectric effect.  This work, for which a patent has been now been applied, has the potential to make our electronic devices more efficient.”

*Published in Nature Communications