The term “nano” – in particular in nanoelectronics – has become familiar to a large number of scientists and students over the last decade or so. While some initial disproportionately high excitement has rightfully vanished, the field is highly active and demonstrates continuous progress. Beyond a general interest in the understanding of new phenomena on the nano-scale, scientists notice the potential of nanoelectronics applications in a variety of different sectors. One area of interest is high performance nano-transistors. With conventional transistors facing an increasing amount of challenges when it comes to further improvements of performance specs, novel device concepts based on nano-materials obtain a larger degree of attention than ever before.
Various materials are currently explored for electronic device applications. Common ground in most cases is that new nano-materials fall into the category of low-dimensional structures. Different from their “bulk-type” counterparts charge transport in low-dimensional systems is explicitly affected by their surface and their finite size. Examples of these kinds of structures are carbon nanotubes, nanowires, graphene, nano-particles etc. Familiar phenomena and quantities e.g. scattering of electrons and holes, effective masses and energy dispersion relations all get altered by the smallness of the structure with the result that electronic devices exhibit unforeseen properties that can be exploited for unconventional device ideas.
Areas of activities in the Appenzeller lab all fall into the above category. Instead of imposing a certain idea onto a material or structure, the philosophy is to understand novel transport phenomena and to apply this knowledge to new transistor concepts. Currently we are exploring nanotubes, nanowires as well as graphene in this context. However, it is not the material itself that is central for research in our group, instead it is the device application that dictates what material will be employed making our effort rather devices than materials driven.
The following two projects are excellent examples of the type of research we are interested in:
More examples for the group's research can be found under "About the Appenzeller Lab Group." Contributions are by the students involved in a specific research activity.
About the Appenzeller Lab Group
