Tech Briefs Magazine - March 2022 - 22

Electrical/Electronics
Self-Sustaining, Intelligent Electronic Microsystems from
" Green " Material
Such electronics made from sustainable biomaterials are more amenable to interacting with
the human body and diverse environments.
University of Massachusetts, Amherst, MA
R
esearchers have created an electronic
microsystem that can intelligently
respond to information inputs
without any external energy input,
much like a self-autonomous living
organism. The microsystem is
constructed
from a novel type of electronics
that can process ultralow electronic
signals and incorporates a novel device
that can generate electricity from the
ambient environment. Both of the
key components of the microsystem
are made from protein nanowires, a
" green " electronic material that is renewably
produced from mi crobes without
producing e-waste.
The project represents a continuing
evolution of recent research by the
team. Previously, they discovered that
electricity can be generated from the
ambient environment/humidity with a
protein-nanowire-based Air Generator
(Air-Gen), a device that continuously
electrical signals that match the biological
signal amplitudes.
The new microsystems incorporate
the electricity from Air-Gen to drive
sensors and circuits constructed from
protein-nanowire memristors. The electronic
microsystem gets energy from
the environment to support sensing and
computation without the need of an
external energy source (e.g. battery).
It has full energy self-sustainability and
intelligence, just like the self-autonomy
in a living organism.
An electronic microsystem was made from a
" green " electronic material that is renewably
produced from microbes without producing
e-waste. (Photo: University of Massachusetts)
produces electricity in almost all environments
found on Earth. They also discovered
that the protein nanowires can
be used to construct electronic devices
called memristors that can mimic brain
computation and work with ultralow
The system is also made from environmentally
friendly biomaterial - protein
nanowires harvested from bacteria. The
Air-Gen was developed from the microbe
Geobacter, which was then utilized to
create electricity from humidity in the air
and later to build memristors capable of
mimicking human intelligence.
For more information, contact Mary
Dettloff at mdettloff@umass.edu.
Sensitive Method for Detecting Transistor Defects
The method could support the semiconductor industry and facilitate development of
next-gen devices.
National Institute of Standards and Technology, Gaithersburg, MD
esearchers
R
devised and tested a
highly sensitive method of detecting
and counting defects in transistors - a
matter of urgent concern to the semiconductor
industry as it develops new materials
for next-generation devices. These
defects limit transistor and circuit performance
and can affect product reliability.
A typical transistor is, for most uses,
basically a switch. When it's on, current
flows from one side of a semiconductor
to the other; switching it off stops the
current. Those actions respectively create
the binary 1s and 0s of digital information.
Transistor performance critically
depends on how reliably a designated
22
amount of current will flow. Defects in
the transistor material, such as unwanted
" impurity " regions or broken chemical
bonds, interrupt and destabilize the flow.
These defects can manifest themselves
immediately or over time while the device
is operating.
Over many years, scientists have found
numerous ways to classify and minimize
those effects. But defects become harder
to identify as transistor dimensions become
almost unimaginably small and
switching speeds very high. For some
promising semiconductor materials in
development - such as silicon carbide
(SiC) instead of silicon (Si) alone for
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novel high-energy, high-temperature devices
- there has been no simple and
straightforward way to characterize defects
in detail.
The new method works with both
traditional Si and SiC, allowing researchers
to identify not only the type
of defect, but also the number of them
in a given space with a DC measurement.
The research focuses on interactions
between the two kinds of electrical
charge carriers in a transistor:
negatively charged electrons and positively
charged " holes, " which are spaces
where an electron is missing from the
local atomic structure.
Tech Briefs, March 2022
TB Electrical Electronics 0322_1.indd 22
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2/15/22 1:39 PM
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Tech Briefs Magazine - March 2022

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