Research Discovery Could Revolutionize Semiconductor Manufacturing

New submitter arobatino writes "A new method of manufacturing semiconductors which eliminates the substrate (in other words, no wafer) could be much faster and cheaper. From the article: 'Instead of starting from a silicon wafer or other substrate, as is usual today, researchers have made it possible for the structures to grow from freely suspended nanoparticles of gold in a flowing gas. "The basic idea was to let nanoparticles of gold serve as a substrate from which the semiconductors grow. This means that the accepted concepts really were turned upside down!" Since then, the technology has been refined, patents have been obtained and further studies have been conducted. In the article in Nature, the researchers show how the growth can be controlled using temperature, time and the size of the gold nanoparticles.'"

Re:expect to be able to ... p-n diodes

[Anonymous Coward]

Tell me more about this porn-type semiconductor material. Do you have a link?

Re:expect to be able to ... p-n diodes

[Anonymous Coward]

Agree. It is much clearer to (drum roll) make the ellipses into drum rolls. Terminating Tadah's! can also add a sense of (drum roll) occasion. Tadah!

Re:expect to be able to ... p-n diodes

[Anonymous Coward]

Eh, an ellipsis can be fine in the middle of a sentence. His sin is the number of periods.

There are three periods in an ellipsis. Three.

Understand, everyone? Three shall be the number of periods, and the number of periods shall be three. Four periods thou shalt not add, neither addest thou two periods, excepting that thou then proceed to three. Five is right out.

Re:gold is a contaminant

[Neil Boekend]

Depends on the radiation you want. Americium is a readily available alpha radiation source and I probably have a couple of grams of it. Radium is also good as alpha source and easily available to but it's a bit spread out in normal houses. For gamma sources you may use gamma ray bursts, but since they are deep-space based I don't know whether anyone can claim to have them. I do not know where you'd get a beta ray source as a consumer.