The Near Future Of Electronics

So far, electronics has depended heavily on silicon for its development. But now new materials and techniques are emerging to take electronics further

- Rajesh Jha

The era of electronics started much before it got its name as electronics. Earlier it was called radio engineering. The electronic word came into vogue in late 1940 and became prominent by late 1950s. The electronics industry was revolutionized by the invention of the first transistor in 1948, which was a germanium-based semiconductor. However, germanium has the drawback of breaking down at around 80°C, so most of it is now silicon.

Now, for more than seven decades, we have been living with electronics hand in hand. Our reliance and dependency on it are increasing day by day and we have come to an era where without electronics we cannot survive.

For decades and decades together, silicon has remained the only option for electronics. And we have seen the performance of silicon-based devices in terms of speed, power consumption, size, and cost improving multi-fold. But recent developments in material science is paving new ways to electronics through fields such as:

• 2D electronics
• Organic electronics
• Memristors
• Spintronics Molecular electronics

2D electronics

In the year 2010, Nobel Prize for Physics was awarded to Andre Geim and Konstantin Novoselov for the experiments carried out on graphene, which is a structural variant of carbon. Carbon atoms in graphene form a hexagonal two-dimensional structure (lattice), which is as thick as an atomic layer and has high electrical conductivity, high thermal conductivity, high mechanical flexibility, and probably the highest mechanical strength (strongest material tested ever). Graphene is from where the concept of two-dimensional (2D) electronics started.