In case you missed it (ICYMI), here are some of the stories that made headlines in the world of cleanrooms and nanotechnology in the past week.
Indirect contact to graphene via liquid metal droplets. Image: Space and Naval Warfare Systems Center
Researchers from the Space and Naval Warfare Systems Center Pacific have come up with an innovative way to electrically contact graphene with liquid metals instead of typical rigid electrodes such as gold and silver. Using this new technique, the team demonstrated low-contact resistance with a graphene material that is comparable to the best examples published in scientific literature, but with added advantages such as flexibility and low cost.
Shanhai Capital has announced that it will merge with Analogix Semiconductor in a deal valued at more than $500 million. Analogix, based in Santa Clara, Calif., manufactures semiconductors that enable high-resolution displays for mobile devices, virtual/augmented reality (VR/AR), and other high-performance electronic products. Its customers include Apple, Samsung, LG, Microsoft, Google, Lenovo, Dell, HP, Asus, and HTC. The majority of the company’s engineering resources are in Beijing. The transaction is subject to regulatory approvals and is expected to close in late 2016.
Finally, a team of researchers from the University of Pittsburgh has observed at atomic scale a previously unknown mechanism of shear-driven crystal to amorphously transform in silicon. Their research represents a milestone in the in situ study of amorphization of silicon. By using state-of-the-art in situ atomic-scale transmission electron microscopy, the Pitt team showed that shear-driven amorphization in diamond cubic silicon is led by a shear induced phase transformation to diamond hexagonal silicon, and dislocation nucleation dominated deformation in the latter phase that resulted in amorphous silicon.
