Vanadium dioxide could revolutionize electronics

Scientists at the École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne are excited about the properties and possibilities they see in vanadium dioxide (VO2), which could outperform silicon and lead to a new generation of electronic products.

Vanadium dioxide would be the new technological revolution

Scientists at the École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne see great opportunities for vanadium dioxide, especially in the fields of space communication systems, neuromorphic computing, and high-frequency radars. This element behaves as an insulator at room temperature but as a conductor at temperatures above 68 ° C.

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This change occurs because at that temperature the material changes from a crystalline to a metallic atomic structure, known as a "metal-insulator transition, " or MIT for short. This change takes less than a nanosecond making it an attractive property for electronics.

This change occurs at too low a temperature to be useful in electronics, however, the EPFL researchers have managed to make it occur at temperatures above 100 ° C by adding germanium to VO2.

In addition VO2 is also sensitive to other factors that could induce its phase change, an example of this is the injection of electrical energy or applying a THz radiation pulse. The research project will continue until at least 2020 and has been awarded € 3.9 million in EU funding.

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