Silk-Based Transistors For Hybrid Applications
Silk woven into transistors can result in highly sensitive, ultra-fast sensors, new findings that could open doors to many other applications for the hybrid devices
IEEESpectrum reports:
Transistors are typically made of inorganic materials, such as minerals and metals. However, adding organic materials to transistors could grant them new abilities, such as the ability to respond directly to the environment or the body.
In a new study, researchers experimented with using silk within a transistor. “It’s extremely versatile, capable of being embedded with many different molecules to open up a lot of functions,” says study senior author Fiorenzo Omenetto, an applied physicist at Tufts University in Medford, Massachusetts. “We can also very exquisitely control its deposition to start integrating biology with technology, and it has shown really incredible surface properties, like atomic smoothness. And the solvent of its precursor material is water, which makes it biocompatible and sustainable.”
The researchers successfully produced silk films 3 to 300 nanometers thick on chips and etched them with features up to a few microns wide. They had the silk serve as the insulator within the transistor.
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