Microelectronics, inorganic

Another important field where inorganic nanotubes can be useful is as tips in scanning probe microscopy (16). Here, applications in the inspection of microelectronics circuitry have been demonstrated and potential applications in nanolithography are being contemplated. A comparison between a WS2 nanotube tip and a microfabricated Si tip indicates that while the microfabricated conical-shaped Si tip is unable to probe the bottom of deep and narrow grooves, the slender and inert... 

Indeed these qualities have been developed since the mid-Century so that in a particular segment of the information industry such as telephones and communications, our volume of synthetic polymers used annually exceeds that of any other class of materials, although the actual tonnage of metallic and inorganic matter still leads. For the world of tomorrow, we find microelectronics, thin film circuitry and systems and, especially now photonics, with lasers and light guides, to be dominant components. All of these strongly use polymers, for their special physical-chemical as well as familiar mechanical and electro-optical qualities. 

While silicon is not the ideal solar cell material, it currently dominates the solar PV market due to its prevalence in the microelectronics industry. Crystalline silicon (c-Si) is an inorganic semiconductor, in which the valence-band maximum and conduction-band minimum are not directly aligned in Uspace, making c-Si an indirect bandgap material. The indirect nature of the bandgap in c-Si means that a considerable change in momentum is required for the promotion of an electron from... 

Adhesion of polyimides to inorganic substrates is of great importance to the microelectronics industry [1, 2]. The polyimide films are deposited most often by spin coating the polyamic acid (PAA) usually from a TV-methylpyrrolidone (NMP) solution onto the substrate surface followed by thermal imidization at temperatures up to 400<>C. The most studied polyimide is the pyromellitic dianhydride-oxydianiline (PMDA-ODA), which exhibits excellent mechanical and dielectric properties, but not so good adhesion characteristics. The latter has been generally overcome by application of an adhesion promoter, such as y-aminopropyltriethoxysilane [3-7]. The reactions of APS (coated from water solution) with the silicon dioxide surface as well as with polyamic acid have been well characterized by Linde and Gleason [4] however, we do not have such detailed information available on APS interaction with other ceramic surfaces. 

Houskova, J. Ho, K. Balazs, M. K. In Microelectronics Processing Inorganic Materials Characterization Casper, L. A., Ed. ACS Symposium Series 295 American Chemical Society Washington, DC, 1986 pp 320-332. 

While these polymeric materials hold promise for low-cost electronics and simplified device processing, they still suffer from lower performance than conventional inorganic semiconductors. As the development of these novel materials continues, an alternative technology incorporating patterning schemes such as inkjet printing and conventional vacuum deposited thin films, may provide the required overlap of performance with low-cost fabrication of microelectronic circuits on large-area platforms. 

Figure 3-8 Raman microprobe spectrum of fluorinated hydrocarbon contaminant on silicon wafer that had been polished and plasma-etched (lower) and Raman spectrum of polytetrafluoro-ethylene (upper). Laser, 135 mW at 514.5 nm. Slits, 300 jon. Time, 0.5 s per data point. (Reproduced with permission from Adar, F., in Microelectronics Processing Inorganic Materials Characterization (L. A. Casper, ed.), ACS Symposium Series Vol. 295, pp. 230-239. American Chemical Society, Washington, D.C., 1986. Copyright 1986 American Chemical Society.)...

Achievements in the field of organic conductors and superconductors have promoted the development of the field of molecular electronics as well. The latter is a nascent field of research, suggesting the use of organic molecules with the tunability of their electronic structure, instead of conventional inorganic microelectronics. It has been suggested that molecular electronic devices could utilize a variety of optoelectronic and conductivity phenomena of organic substances at the nanometer level. Whereas the conductivity and superconductivity of organic metals is a result of bulk electrical behavior of lower-dimensional systems, molecular electronics deals... 

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