IBM atomic technology breakthrough

IBM today announced a major breakthrough in atomic-level materials science, which will enable the creation of new non-volatile memory and logic chips, as well as significantly lower power consumption than today's silicon chips. This result was published yesterday in the journal Science.

As we have mentioned on numerous occasions, the development of semiconductor materials and technologies under Moore's Law is accelerating close to the physical and performance limits of silicon, and new solutions are urgently needed to continue to improve performance and reduce power consumption.

IBM scientists found that by inserting and removing the electric field-driven oxygen ions at the oxide-liquid interface, the metal oxide can be reversibly switched between the insulator and conductor states. Tests have shown that if an oxide material, which is itself isolated, becomes conductive, the material can remain metallic even after the device is removed.

This non-volatile nature means that chips based on this phenomenon can store and transmit data more efficiently, and it is event-driven and does not require constant current to maintain device state.

IBM used a positively-charged ionic liquid electrolyte as an insulating oxygen a-oxide material, namely vanadium dioxide (VO2), and successfully turned it into a metal conductor and maintained this state until negatively charged. The ionic liquid electrolyte returns to its original insulation state.

In fact, this state transition study has been carried out for many years, but unlike the past, IBM found that the injection and removal of oxygen ions into the metal oxide in the electric field is the key to the change of state of the oxide material. Previous studies have also used temperature and external pressure to turn conductors into insulators, but none of them have practical value.

Dr. Stuart Parkin, academician of the IBM Research Institute, pointed out: "The understanding and control at the atomic level allow us to develop new materials and equipment. The principle of operation is completely different from today's silicon material technology. Nowadays, equipment must be recharged. In the future, only weak ion currents are needed to achieve reversible control of the state of matter, and new mobile devices can be created. Applying this innovative concept to the three-dimensional architecture can prevent IT industry from encountering technical bottlenecks.”

On the left is an optical image of a typical ionic liquid grid device with a drop of ionic liquid on the gate electrode and oxide channel. Gold squares are pads that come into contact with the device through leads. On the right is a partial enlargement showing the channel (brown yellow) and gold electrical contacts (bright yellow). The left and right contacts are the source and drain contacts respectively, and the other four are the measurement resistors.