Nanotechnology in Electronics

Introduction and Various Applications of Nanotechnology in the field of Electronics

7 min readAug 10, 2021

Introduction to Nanotechnology

Nanoscience is the study of materials when they are at their atomic, molecular and macromolecular dimensions. At these scales the properties of the material differ significantly from their original state. The application of nanoscience in day to day or real-life devices is called as nanotechnology. The industrial sector depends on the material for its sustenance and materials are made up of molecules and atoms thus nanotechnology can affect each and every sector. Nanoscience studies the materials with size 1–100nm range in at least one dimension, but Nanotechnology studies the materials with similar range to develop a real-life application.

How small is Nano?

The nanometer scale often ranges from 1–100nm. 1 nm is one billionth of a meter i.e., 10^-9 m. The scale is often set to 1nm to avoid the interference of single atom or very small groups of atoms being disguised as Nano materials. The following fig shows the approximate comparison of nanometer scale.

Fig 1 — The Comparison of Nanoscale — Fig 1 — Comparison of Nanoscale

Classification of Nanomaterials

Nanomaterials Classification is based on the number of dimensions, which are not confined to the nanoscale range are as follows-:

1) Zero Dimensional Nanomaterials- In this type of materials all the dimensions are measured in nanoscale i.e., no dimensions are larger than 100nm. For e.g. Nanoparticles they might be amorphous or crystalline.

2) One Dimensional Nanomaterials– In this type of material one dimension is outside of nanoscale. The most common type is nanorods, nanotubes, nanowires.

3) Two Dimensional Nanomaterials — Two of the dimensions are not confined by the nanoscale. The most common types are Nano-films, Nano-layers, Nano-coatings, etc. Two dimensional Nanomaterials such as tubes and wires have created a great hype amongst the scientific community in recent years. The main reason being their unique electrical and mechanical properties.

4) Carbon Nanotubes — Carbon nanotubes (CNTs) were first observed by Sumio Iijima in 1991. CNTs are extended tubes of rolled graphene sheets. There exists main two types of CNTs: first being single walled (one tube) or multi-walled (several concentric tubes). Both of these are typically a few nanometers in diameter and few micrometers to centimeters in length. CNTs have gained a cult status amongst the nanomaterials for their Nobel properties. The first one is Mechanical toughness (their young’s modulus is over 1 tera pascal which makes them stronger than diamond), flexibility, can conduct electricity very well (the helicity of the graphene sheet decides whether the Carbon nanotube is a semiconductor or metallic). These properties make CNTs a potential contender for applications like sensors, displays, memories etc.

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Nanotechnology is emerging in various fields of engineering, science and technology. The widespread include fields like

· Nano-Material

· Nano-Electronics

· Nano-Robotics

· Quantum-Computing

· Nano-Metrology

In further blog we will discuss about the nanotechnology applications in Electronics.

Nanoelectronics in Electronics devices :

Nanoelectronics refer to the use of nanotechnology in electronic components. the section covers a diverse set of devices and materials, with the common characteristic that they are so small that inter-atomic interactions and quantum mechanical properties need to be used extensively. Some of these include: hybrid molecular/semiconductor electronics, one-dimensional nanotubes/nanowires, or advanced molecular electronics. Recent silicon CMOS technology generations, such as the 22 nm node, are already within this regime. Nanoelectronics are sometimes considered as disruptive technology due to the significantly different from traditional transistors.

Nano Transistors — In order to make the existing computer much faster its important that we change the main root of all electronics circuit which is transistors. The transistors that are made using the traditional manufacturing like CMOS technology can be improved if made by using both semiconducting CNTs and with heterostructured semiconducting wires. Nanoelectronic transistors are already in implementation, the critical length scale is already at nanoscale. In 1999, a MOSFET developed at the Laboratory for Electronics and Information Technology in Grenoble, France, had a diameter of 18 nm (approximately 70 atoms placed side by side). This was almost 1/10 of the industry produced transistor in 2003. It stated that with this technology on a single euro coin almost 7 billion transistors could be fabricated.

2) Storage Memory — Transistors play a very important role in memory design in computers. However, analysis into crossbar switch based mostly physical science have offered another mistreatment reconfigurable interconnections between vertical and horizontal wiring arrays to form radical high-density Memories. The two leaders in this very field being Nantero who created a crossbar memory out of CNTs called Nano-RAM and other being Hewlett-Packard who created a replacement for flash memory using memristor material.

3) Nano Displays- Carbon Nanotubes (CNTs) can be used to produce low energy efficient displays. CNTs have the property of electrical conduction and because of their very thin diameter they can be used as field emitters with enormous efficiency for field emission display (FED). The very operation matches to the operation of CRT but on a very small level. Flat panel displays can be made flexible as well as thinner as compared to the current flat panel displays if we used electrodes made from Nanowires. Nanolithography can be implemented for the fabrication of chips. The transistors made out of Nanowires can be put together on thin glass, thin film of plastic or on E-paper displays.

Fig 4- Flexible Displays made using CNTs

4) Quantum Computers- The regular computer uses the binary logic i.e., 1 or 0 for almost all processing operation. Now imagine if there was another state other than 0 and 1. This is what quantum computing is, it uses the same argument from quantum mechanics (Superposition and Entanglement). The Qubit is used instead of normal bit, it has 1 and 0 state along with the superposition state i.e., the qubit can be 0 and 1 at the same time. This makes quantum procession much faster and reliable than traditional computing.

5) Energy Production- Cheaper and more Efficient Photovoltaic modules can be created with nanostructured material along with the use of nanowires. This could solve most of the energy problems and can contribute to more efficient and greener earth. There is an additional analysis into energy production for devices that will operate in vivo, called bio-Nano generators. A bio-Nano generator is a nanoscale Electrochemical device, sort of a cell or electric cell, however drawing power from glucose present in a living body, similar to how the body generates energy from food. To attain the result, enzymes used that’s capable of stripping Glucose of its electrons, liberating them to be used in electrical devices. The average person’s body might, in theory, generate one hundred watts of electricity (about 2000 food calories per day) by a bio-Nano generator.

6) Nano Sensors-: The most benefited sensors from nanotechnology would be photonic sensors i.e., the sensors which senses the light. The more practical application would be digital camera. The Digital camera has a sensor (CMOS chip) which receives the light and generates a binary sequence. The more transistors fabricated on the chip larger the resolution would be. Nanotechnology masters the art of Fabricating more components on a small compact space so, keeping the camera size similar its resolution (picture quality) can be increase drastically.

7) Nano Robotics-: The Nano Robotics are extremely small sized robots with fully functional and automated controls. The aim of these robots is to tackle the situations a human could possibly not. Their application lies mainly in medical field. These Nano bots can be injected into blood streams or can be used for early diagnostics. Using these bots, we can deliver the drug at a specific targeted area.

Fig 5- Nano Robots performing a single cell Surgery

Advantages of using Nanotechnology —

1. Energy Efficient- The nanotechnology can contribute to cheaper and more efficient solar power and it can also revolutionize the way we look at energy storage.

2. Advantages in Fabrication- The current VLSI technology will come to its limits very soon, if a single component is fabricated a molecule apart then the circuit wont work. Hence a new technology like nanotechnology can be beneficial because Nanotechnology constructs the circuits very accurately at an atomic level.

Fig 6- 16 Billion Transistors on a Single Chip

3. Medical Advances- Using Nanobots drug delivery can be targeted as well as the early diagnostics is possible.

4. Material Advantages — It is possible that this technology will create some of the most precise, durable, cheaper and portable materials that can change each and every sector.

Disadvantages of using Nanotechnology —

Environmental Impacts-: Whenever we create a new material the natural balance is disturbed and it leads to more wastage. It is also possible that in the desperate need of new technology we will exhaust all of our existing resources.