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Faster, smaller, more powerful computer chips: Hafnia dons a new face

Materials research creates potential for improved computer chips and transistors

It’s a material world, and an extremely versatile one at that, considering its most basic building blocks – atoms – can be connected together to form different structures that retain the same composition.

Diamond and graphite, for example, are but two of the many polymorphs of carbon, meaning that both have the same chemical composition and differ only in the manner in which their atoms are connected. But what a world of difference that connectivity makes: The former goes into a ring and costs thousands of dollars, while the latter has to sit content within a humble pencil.

The inorganic compound hafnium dioxide commonly used in optical coatings likewise has several polymorphs, including a tetragonal form with highly attractive properties for computer chips and other optical elements. However, because this form is stable only at temperatures above 3100 degrees Fahrenheit – think blazing inferno – scientists have had to make do with its more limited monoclinic polymorph. Until now.

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Making glass invisible: A nanoscience-based disappearing act

If you have ever watched television in anything but total darkness, used a computer while sitting underneath overhead lighting or near a window, or taken a photo outside on a sunny day with your smartphone, you have experienced a major nuisance of modern display screens: glare. Most of today’s electronics devices are equipped with glass or plastic covers for protection against dust, moisture, and other environmental contaminants, but light reflection from these surfaces can make information displayed on the screens difficult to see.

Now, scientists at the Center for Functional Nanomaterials (CFN) – a U.S. Department of Energy Office of Science User Facility at Brookhaven National Laboratory – have demonstrated a method for reducing the surface reflections from glass surfaces to nearly zero by etching tiny nanoscale features into them.

Whenever light encounters an abrupt change in refractive index (how much a ray of light bends as it crosses from one material to another, such as between air and glass), a portion of the light is reflected. The nanoscale features have the effect of making the refractive index change gradually from that of air to that of glass, thereby avoiding reflections. The ultra-transparent nanotextured glass is antireflective over a broad wavelength range (the entire visible and near-infrared spectrum) and across a wide range of viewing angles. Reflections are reduced so much that the glass essentially becomes invisible.

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Cool! Go theoretical -and experimental-physics!

Heating up exotic topological insulators

Fashion is changing in the avant-garde world of next-generation computer component materials. Traditional semiconductors like silicon are releasing their last new lines. Exotic materials called topological insulators (TIs) are on their way in. And when it comes to cool, nitrogen is the new helium.

This was clearly on display in a novel experiment at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) that was performed by a multi-institutional collaboration including UCLA, NIST and the Beijing Institute of Technology in China.

Topological insulators are a new class of materials that were discovered less than a decade ago after earlier theoretical work, recognized in the 2016 Nobel Prize in physics, predicted they could exist. The materials are electrical insulators on the inside and they conduct electricity on the outer surface. They are exciting to computer designers because electric current travels along them without shedding heat, meaning components made from them could reduce the high heat production that plagues modern computers. They also might be harnessed one day in quantum computers, which would exploit less familiar properties of electrons, such as their spin, to make calculations in entirely new ways. When TIs conduct electricity, all of the electrons flowing in one direction have the same spin, a useful property that quantum computer designers could harness.

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How to Beam ➝ Noemi Makra Style

Which new battery will take electric vehicles across the finish line?

For the past seven years or so, electric vehicles have been on the rise. Tesla is practically a household name, and it’s not uncommon to see EVs from companies like Nissan, Chevy, and BMW on the road now. That wouldn’t have happened without the lithium ion battery. Right now, lithium ion is the most popular battery type for electric vehicles. It can last up to 200 miles on a single charge, and it’s not too expensive to make, which means EVs are also relatively affordable.

But experts say that lithium ion batteries can only take electric cars so far—both on the road and in the marketplace. Before they can beat more popular combustion engine cars, electric vehicles will need a battery makeover, which is why countless engineers and scientists are searching for the next EV battery.

So what’s it going to look like? There are dozens of battery chemistries to play with. But how many of them can even approach the success of lithium ion? Electric vehicle advocate and blogger Chelsea Sexton joins George Crabtree, the director of the Joint Center for Energy Storage Research at Argonne National Laboratory, to discuss potential successors to the popular lithium ion battery.