Deep inside the electronic devices that proliferate in our world, from cell phones to solar cells, layer upon layer of almost unimaginably small transistors and delicate circuitry shuttle all-important electrons back and forth.
It is now possible to cram 6 million or more transistors into a single layer of these chips. Designers include layers of glassy materials between the electronics to insulate and protect these delicate components against the continual push and pull of heating and cooling that often causes them to fail.
A paper published today in the journal Nature Materials reshapes our understanding of the materials in those important protective layers. In the study, Stanford’s Reinhold Dauskardt, a professor of materials science and engineering, and doctoral candidate Joseph Burg reveal that those glassy materials respond very differently to compression than they do to the tension of bending and stretching. The findings overturn conventional understanding and could have a lasting impact on the structure and reliability of the myriad devices that people depend upon every day.