PARIS — Researchers from the School of Electronics and Computer Science (ECS) at the University of Southampton are developing what they call the smallest, high performance and low power silicon sensors for biosensing and environmental monitoring.
This development is part of the three-year European PF7-funded NEMSIC (Nano-electo-mechanical-system-integrated-circuits) project.
The team of researchers said the sensor will prove sensitivity and very low power consumption by cointegrating single-electron transistors (SETs) and nano-electro-mechanical systems (NEMS) on a common silicon technology platform.
"The single-electron transistor combined with the NEM device technology reduces power consumption at both ON and OFF states of the sensor," explained Professor Hiroshi Mizuta at ECS. "Stand-by power is reduced to zero by having a complete sleep with the NEM switch when it is off.'
As the traditional CMOS approach tends to show its limits, Professor Mizuta noted that he and his team at ECS expect to develop the single-electron transistor with a suspended silicon nanobridge that will work as a sensitive detector for biological and chemical molecules.
"This sensor will be the smallest and use less power than any other on the market," claimed Professor Mizuta. "The fact that it will be at the nanoscale means that it will be able to detect either single-charge transfer and/or change in masses caused by a small amount of chemical and biological molecules electrically."
Headed by Professor Adrian Ionescu of Ecole Polytechnique Fdrale de Lausanne, the NEMSIC project gathers partners such as Delft University of Technology, Stitching IMEC Nederland, CEA-Leti, SCIPROM Sarl, Interuniversity Micro-electronics Center, Honeywell Romania SRL " Sensors Laboratory Bucharest, University of Geneva.
