To extend future missions, researchers reporting in ACS Nano reveal that transistors and circuits with carbon nanotubes can be set up to keep their electrical properties and memory after being bombarded by high quantities of radiation.
One possibility is to include carbon nanotubes in extensively used electronic parts, such as field-effect transistors. The radiation tolerance for carbon nanotube field-effect transistors has not been extensively studied. Pritpal Kanhaiya, Max Shulaker and colleagues desired to see if they could craft this type of field-effect transistor to withstand high levels of radiation, and construct memory chips based on these transistors.
A memory chip was made of transistors with carbon nanotubes that kept their electrical properties and memory after being bombarded by high quantities of radiation. Credit: Adapted from ACS Nano 2021, DOI: 10.1021/ acsnano.1 c04194.
Space missions, such as NASAs Orion that will take astronauts to Mars, are pressing the limits of human expedition. But throughout their transit, spacecrafts encounter a constant stream of damaging cosmic radiation, which can harm or even ruin onboard electronic devices. To extend future objectives, researchers reporting in ACS Nano reveal that transistors and circuits with carbon nanotubes can be set up to preserve their electrical properties and memory after being bombarded by high quantities of radiation.
The lifetime and range of deep area objectives are currently restricted by the energy efficiency and toughness of the innovation driving them. Extreme radiation in space can harm electronics and cause data glitches, or even make computers break down entirely.
The radiation tolerance for carbon nanotube field-effect transistors has not been commonly studied. Pritpal Kanhaiya, Max Shulaker and associates desired to see if they might craft this type of field-effect transistor to hold up against high levels of radiation, and develop memory chips based on these transistors.
To do this, the scientists transferred carbon nanotubes on a silicon wafer as the semiconducting layer in field-effect transistors. Then, they tested different transistor configurations with different levels of protecting, including thin layers of hafnium oxide and titanium and platinum metal, around the semiconducting layer.
The group discovered that putting shields both above and listed below the carbon nanotubes secured the transistors electrical residential or commercial properties versus inbound radiation approximately 10 Mrad– a level much higher than many silicon-based radiation-tolerant electronics can manage. When a shield was only placed below the carbon nanotubes, they were safeguarded as much as 2 Mrad, which is similar to business silicon-based radiation-tolerant electronics.
Finally, to accomplish a balance in between fabrication simplicity and radiation effectiveness, the team built static random-access memory (SRAM) chips with the bottom shield version of the field-effect transistors. Simply as with experiments performed on the transistors, these memory chips had a similar X-ray radiation limit as silicon-based SRAM gadgets.
These results suggest that carbon nanotube field-effect transistors, specifically double-shielded ones, could be a promising addition to next-generation electronic devices for space exploration, the researchers state.
Reference: “Carbon Nanotubes for Radiation-Tolerant Electronics” by Pritpal S. Kanhaiya, Andrew Yu, Richard Netzer, William Kemp, Derek Doyle and Max M. Shulaker, 27 October 2021, ACS Nano.DOI: 10.1021/ acsnano.1 c04194.
The authors acknowledge financing from the U.S. Air Force Research Laboratory and Analog Devices, Inc
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