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The source of Ant-Man's incredible energy output from his diminutive body is attributed to the "transistors" embedded in his suit, which amplify weak signals for processing. Unlike conventional transistors that suffer from heat energy loss and signal transfer speed limitations, resulting in degraded performance, Ant-Man's suit has overcome these limitations. What if it were possible to create a high-performance, lightweight, and compact suit that retains heat energy without sacrificing efficiency?
Professor Kyoung-Duck Park and Yeonjeong Koo from the Department of Physics at POSTECH, along with a team from ITMO University in Russia led by Professor Vasily Kravtsov, have collaboratively developed a groundbreaking technology called the "nano-excitonic transistor." This innovation utilizes intralayer and interlayer excitons in heterostructure-based semiconductors to overcome the limitations of conventional transistors.
Excitons play a pivotal role in the light emission properties of semiconductor materials and hold immense potential for the development of next-generation light-emitting elements with reduced heat generation. Moreover, excitons also hold promise as a light source for quantum information technology, thanks to their ability to freely convert between light and material in their electrically neutral states.
In a semiconductor heterobilayer, which is formed by stacking two distinct semiconductor monolayers, there are two types of excitons: intralayer excitons that exhibit a horizontal direction, and interlayer excitons that have a vertical direction. These two types of excitons in the heterobilayer open up exciting possibilities for novel applications in the field of advanced optoelectronic devices.
Controlling the optical signals emitted by intralayer and interlayer excitons presents unique challenges due to differences in their light properties, durations, and coherence times. Harnessing the potential of these excitons for developing a two-bit exciton transistor requires precise selective control over their respective optical signals. However, achieving such control at the nanoscale has been challenging due to issues such as the non-homogeneity of semiconductor heterostructures, low luminous efficiency of interlayer excitons, and limitations imposed by the diffraction limit of light. Overcoming these obstacles is crucial for realizing the full potential of excitonic transistors and advancing the field of optoelectronics.
The research team had previously proposed a method for controlling excitons in nano-scale spaces using a nano-tip to apply pressure to semiconductor materials. In their latest breakthrough, they have achieved remote control of exciton density and luminance efficiency using polarized light on the tip, without direct physical contact with the excitons. This pioneering approach, made possible by combining a photonic nanocavity with a spatial light modulator, allows for reversible control of excitons while minimizing potential physical damage to the semiconductor material.
One of the significant advantages of this method is that the nano-excitonic transistor, which relies on "light" for operation, has the potential to process large amounts of data at the speed of light, while minimizing heat energy loss. This breakthrough brings us a step closer to realizing high-speed, low-energy, and efficient optoelectronic devices.
The rapid integration of artificial intelligence (AI) into our daily lives has exceeded our expectations, with a growing need for vast amounts of data for machine learning to deliver meaningful and helpful answers to users. As AI continues to be adopted in various fields, the volume of information to be collected and processed continues to grow exponentially. This research aims to propose a novel data processing strategy that is suitable for the era of data explosion.
Yeonjeong Koo, one of the co-first authors of the research paper, stated that the nano-excitonic transistor is expected to play a crucial role in the realization of optical computers, which can efficiently process the enormous amounts of data generated by AI technology. The potential of the nano-excitonic transistor in advancing the field of data processing and enabling high-speed, low-energy optical computing holds great promise in meeting the ever-increasing demands of the AI-driven era.
The research, recently published in international journal ACS Nano, was supported by the Samsung Science and Technology Foundation and National Research Foundation of Korea.
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