. The mechanical action used to initiate the strain could be as simple as pushing a button, or be created by the flow of a liquid, stretching of muscles or the movement of a robotic component.
In traditional field-effect transistors, an electrical field switches — or “gates” — the flow of electrical current through a semiconductor. Instead of using an electrical signal, the new logic devices create the switching field by mechanically deforming zinc oxide nanowires. The deformation creates strain in the nanowires, generating an electric field through the piezoelectric effect — which creates electrical charge in certain crystalline materials when they are subjected to mechanical strain.
“When we apply a strain to a nanowire placed across two metal electrodes, we create a field, which is strong enough to serve as the gating voltage,” said Zhong Lin Wang, a Regents professor in the Georgia Tech School of Materials Science and Engineering. “This type of device would allow mechanical action to be interfaced with electronics, and could be the basis for a new form of logic device that uses the piezoelectric potential in place of a gate voltage.”
Wang, who has published a series of articles on the devices in such journals as Nano Letters, Advanced Materials and Applied Physics Letters, calls this new class of nanometer-scale device “piezotronics” because they use piezoelectric potential to tune and gate the charge transport process in semiconductors. The devices rely on the unique properties of zinc oxide nanostructures, which are both semiconducting and piezoelectric.
The transistors and diodes add to the family of nanodevices developed by Wang and his research team, and could be combined into systems in which all components are based on the same zinc oxide material. The researchers have previously announced development of nanometer-scale generators that produce a voltage by converting mechanical motion from the environment, and nanowire sensors for measuring pH and detecting ultraviolet light.
