High-temp NEMS switch goes where transistors fry

摘要

Researchers at Case Western Reserve University have developed a SiC NEMS (silicon carbide nanoelectromechan-ical systems) switch that can withstand extreme conditions that a normal transistor could not.rnAttempting to build a computer that could operate under extremely hot temperatures, Swa-rup Bhunia and Mehran Mehragny, professors of electrical engineering and computer science, and Ph.D. student Te-Hao Lee, used electron beam lithography and sulfur hexafluoride gas to etch nanoswitches of heat-tolerant silicon carbide.