Can you bend and break the semiconductor? Does this subvert your understanding of semiconductors? Researchers from the Shanghai Institute of Ceramics, Chinese Academy of Sciences and researcher Chen Lidong collaborated with the German Mape Institute to discover a silver sulfide semiconductor material that is as ductile as metal at room temperature. Silver sulfide is a typical semiconductor, but it has very anomalous and metal-like mechanical properties, in particular, it has good ductility and bendability, and is expected to be widely used in flexible electronics, such as smart clothes, can be Curved solar panels.
Silver Sulfide Film
Good flexural inorganic semiconductors are an urgent requirement of the flexible electronics industry
Metals and ceramics/semiconductors have very different mechanical properties. For example, metals have good ductility, plasticity, and ease of processing. Ceramics and semiconductors, at room temperature, exhibit brittleness, poor plasticity, and difficulty in processing. The difference in their mechanical properties leads to the almost completely opposite application of the two. Especially due to the difference in ductility, in some applications requiring special shapes or deformability, only metals and organic materials are currently suitable for use, and ceramics/semiconductors cannot satisfy such requirements due to their brittleness.
In recent years, flexible electronics have developed rapidly and are considered to have the potential to bring about an electronic technological revolution. It is an emerging electronic technology for fabricating organic/inorganic material electronic devices on flexible substrates. With its unique deformability and high-efficiency, low-cost manufacturing process, it is widely used in information, energy, medical, and defense fields. However, the current inorganic materials, especially semiconductors, are brittle materials, which are prone to cracks under large bending, large deformation, and tensile conditions and lead to device failure. In addition, organic semiconductors have lower mobility than inorganic semiconductors. And the adjustable range of electrical performance is small, unable to meet the vigorous development needs of the semiconductor industry. Therefore, the search for inorganic semiconductor materials with good ductility and bendability is an urgent requirement for the development of flexible electronics.
Flexibility, found in an accidental experiment
The silver sulphide semiconductor has been in existence for a long time. It was originally used for laboratory research, and it is rarely used by civilians. And its flexibility was discovered in an accidental experiment.
It was in 2013 that a student in the research group wanted to sinter silver sulfen into powder and wanted to look at its thermoelectric performance. The result was not broken. The student was very frustrated at the time and felt that it had affected the progress of the experiment. Two researchers, Shi Xun and Chen Lidong, are very excited to see this phenomenon - this is not exactly a semiconductor with similar metal ductility. Prior to this, flexible inorganic thermoelectric materials have never been found. Even silicon semiconductors, which are widely used in chip manufacturing today, cannot be bent, so silicon-based semiconductors are difficult to make flexible materials.
Although the research group's research direction is thermoelectric materials, the two researchers are determined to "walk across the line" to study the ductility mechanism of this semiconductor. After more than four years of experimental research, they have a new understanding of the bendability of the silver-sulfide semiconductor.
Compression deformation up to 50% or more
Compared to other semiconductors or ceramics, silver sulphide has very strange and unique mechanical properties. It has the same ductility and deformability as metal. Under the external force and large strain, it does not break or break material. The processing fragments of ceramics and semiconductors in general are fine particles or powders, and after the silver sulfidation is processed on a lathe, the fragments also resemble metals to form a thin, elongated winding filament, which further characterizes its mechanical properties. The study also found that the compression deformation of silver sulphide can reach more than 50%. The three-point bending test shows that the maximum deformation of its bending exceeds 20%, and the tensile test shows that its tensile deformation can reach 4.2%. All of these values ​​far exceed the known ceramic and semiconductor materials and are similar to those of some metals.
Silver sulphide shards resemble metal as a piece of elongated winding filament
For the application of flexible electronics, the team also prepared a silver sulfide film and found that it has greater deformability than bulk materials. At the same time, the electrical properties after the deformation of silver sulfidide were characterized. After dozens or hundreds of repeated bending deformations, its electrical properties remained unchanged or changed little.
The silver sulphide silver semiconductor can maintain the integrity and electrical properties of the material under bending and deformation. The wide range of adjustable electrical properties, suitable bandwidth, and large mobility make it possible to be widely used in the field of flexible electronics. "However, there is still a long way from the application, and further improvements are needed." The researchers told reporters. Next, the research team will open the search for and discover other semiconductor materials with similar mechanical properties of the metal.
Bitmain Miner:Bitmain Antminer L7 (9.5Gh),Bitmain Antminer L7 (9.16Gh),Bitmain Antminer L7 (9.05Gh),Bitmain Antminer L3+ (504Mh),Bitmain Antminer L3+ (600Mh),Bitmain Antminer L3++ (580Mh),Bitmain Antminer L3++ (596Mh)
Bitmain is the world's leading digital currency mining machine manufacturer. Its brand ANTMINER has maintained a long-term technological and market dominance in the industry, with customers covering more than 100 countries and regions. The company has subsidiaries in China, the United States, Singapore, Malaysia, Kazakhstan and other places.
Bitmain has a unique computing power efficiency ratio technology to provide the global blockchain network with outstanding computing power infrastructure and solutions. Since its establishment in 2013, ANTMINER BTC mining machine single computing power has increased by three orders of magnitude, while computing power efficiency ratio has decreased by two orders of magnitude. Bitmain's vision is to make the digital world a better place for mankind.
Bitmain Miner,antminer L3 Miner,Asic L3 Antminer,Bitmain Antminer L7,ltc miner
Shenzhen YLHM Technology Co., Ltd. , https://www.sggminer.com