Boffins claim to create the world's first wooden transistor
- Reference: 1682960896
- News link: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2023/05/01/wooden_transistor_sweden/
- Source link:
In a recent [1]paper [PDF], researchers from Sweden's Linköping University and the KTH Royal Institute of Technology say they've managed to build a working gate transistor shaped like a "T" from three pieces of balsa wood.
The top of the T served as the transistor channel, with a source at one end and a drain at the other, while the vertical portion of the T used two pieces of balsa with a gap between them to form the transistor's gate pieces.
[2]
A proof-of-concept transistor made of polymer-impregnated balsa wood. Source: Thor Balkhed. - Click to enlarge
Lest you assume you can head to the hobby store and rig up your own balsa wood transistor, keep in mind that order to transform plain old balsa into conductive wood, the Swedish boffins had to first expose it to heat and use chemicals to extract most of the lignin in the arboreal structural framework, leaving behind a porous cellulose block ready to be drenched in conductive polymer.
With the lignin removed, the researchers found that a water-soluble conductive polymer known as poly(3,4-ethylenedioxythiophene) polystyrene sulfonate, or PEDOT:PSS, was the best choice for the job since it behaves similarly to water and easily filled pockets in the balsa all the way down to its core.
[3]
Once filled with the polymer and assembled, the Swedish team achieved conductivity up to 69 Sm -1 , and were also able to prove the device's effectiveness as a double-gate organic electrochemical transistor and functional on/off switch.
[4]
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[6]According to Linköping University, previous wooden transistors were only able to regulate ion transport, and once ions ran out they stopped functioning. That's not the case with this design, which can also function without deteriorating.
The spruce goose of supercomputers still isn't close
We all know how tiny and fast modern transistors are: They're down to [7]single-digit nanometers in size and reach gigahertz in speeds. Organic electrochemical transistors, the closest comparable to the wood electrochemical transistor (WECT) built in Sweden, aren't nearly as small as their silicon counterparts, but are still able to reach [8]millimeters in size with switching rates in the kilohertz.
Also, lest you think this is going to be revolutionary to the semiconductor industry, the conductive balsa wood transistor is neither small nor fast: It's a full three centimeters across and switches at less than a single Hertz. Because it's so slow it's also not able to switch off in under a second, and switching on takes a full five seconds. Not exactly supercomputing - or even pedestrian computing - speeds.
Still, the researchers said in their paper, their result "proves that it is possible to modulate the electrical conductivity of the electroactive wood by applying an external voltage."
[9]
"WECT is not suitable for conventional electronic circuits but is probably an interesting candidate for wood-integrated applications ranging from electrochromic displays to simple logic circuits responding to sensor input," the researchers said.
[10]AMD says transistor tech will keep Moore's law alive for 6 to 8 years
[11]Disruptive innovation's like a party. It's always happening elsewhere
[12]Graphene spintronics crowned latest Moore's Law extender contender
[13]The early days of PCs as seen through DEAD TREES
The team believe their conceptual device could be used in bioelectronic and plant electronics, and that they expect it to be a stepping stone toward the development of smaller, more conductive and faster devices.
Isak Engquist, senior associate professor at Linköping's Laboratory for Organic Electronics and an author on the paper, said the wood transistor wasn't created with any specific application in mind; rather it was an attempt to prove it could be done.
"We've come up with an unprecedented principle. Yes, the wood transistor is slow and bulky, but it does work, and has huge development potential," Engquist said. "This is basic research, showing that it's possible, and we hope it will inspire further research that can lead to applications in the future." ®
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[1] https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2218380120
[2] https://regmedia.co.uk/2023/05/01/wood-transistor.jpg
[3] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_offbeat/science&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=2&c=2ZFA2g5zoACW8-rI5cCepdwAAAAY&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D2%26raptor%3Dcondor%26pos%3Dtop%26test%3D0
[4] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_offbeat/science&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44ZFA2g5zoACW8-rI5cCepdwAAAAY&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[5] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_offbeat/science&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=3&c=33ZFA2g5zoACW8-rI5cCepdwAAAAY&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[6] https://liu.se/en/news-item/varldens-forsta-tratransistor
[7] https://www.theregister.com/2022/06/17/tsmc_details_2nm_node_using/
[8] https://spectrum.ieee.org/wood-transistor
[9] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_offbeat/science&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44ZFA2g5zoACW8-rI5cCepdwAAAAY&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[10] https://www.theregister.com/2022/12/02/amd_transistor_tech/
[11] https://www.theregister.com/2023/01/09/opinion_column_disruption/
[12] https://www.theregister.com/2015/04/16/graphene_spintronics_to_extend_moores_law/
[13] https://www.theregister.com/2012/11/23/early_days_of_pcs/
[14] https://whitepapers.theregister.com/
Woodworm
..'nuff said
Re: Woodworm
But can it have SAP software?
When
They get it scaled down to build a PC.......
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Wait for it! Wait for it! /Sgt Major Williams
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We can Log On.
I think they are barking up the wrong tree.
How "Green" is it to Make in Large Quantities?
Wooden you like to use this for something useful?
Seriously, depending on the chemicals and chemical processes needed, this may or may not be more harmful to the environment to produce than current "standard" transistors.
Complements A&A's [1]Wet String ADSL .
[1] https://www.revk.uk/2017/12/its-official-adsl-works-over-wet-string.html
Linköping
I went for an interview at Nokia in Linköping many years ago. It was the most desolate place I’ve ever been to. I remember the taxi ride from the airport (think Postman Pat kind of scale) to the Nokia office. At one point, I wondered if I was going to be murdered as we travelled along an utterly empty road into what seemed boundless wilderness; just endless pine forests and grasslands. Eventually the Nokia office appeared in the middle of bugger-all anywhere. And I remember thinking the inside of it was just like an Ikea showroom :-)
Years later, some Swedish colleagues tried to convince me that Linköping was actually a really buzzing place. Clearly my taxi driver managed to avoid all the sights and fun!
And no, I didn’t get the job but I wouldn’t have accepted it anyway - just too isolated for me.
Well wooden you know it? Someone has branched out and twigged how to do it. I imagine they've got to the root of the issues by now. If it doesn't work out though they'll probably have to leaf it alone.
"...leaf it alone".
They might possible try calling Special Branch.
Kids playgrounds got there first. All the swings have had wooden chips installed under them for years.
When you extract most of what makes wood wood (look up where the word 'lignin' comes from), and then replace it with some other material, is it still wood?
There must be an IKEA joke in here somewhere. Perhaps transistors embedded in furniture could be used to control or sense something, somehow.
I had a wooden computer once
The keyboard was wooden
The screen was wooden
The motherboard was wooden
The processor was wooden
The memory was wooden
The hard drive was wooden
The operating system was wooden
...
It wooden work
Security?
I wonder how easy it is to root?
Truly we live in an age of wonders
And April First was last month!