Science and Technology Daily, Beijing, October 22 (Reporter Zhang Mengran) - A team from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in the United States has made significant progress in the field of electronic manufacturing: they have used full 3D printing technology to produce active electronic devices that do not require semiconductor materials. This groundbreaking research has been published in the latest issue of the journal Virtual and Physical Prototype, opening up new avenues for future electronic manufacturing.

The team used ordinary 3D printers and low-cost, biodegradable materials to print these semiconductor free devices. Although the performance of these devices is not yet comparable to traditional semiconductor transistors, they are capable of performing some basic control tasks, such as adjusting the speed of electric motors. This new technology uses less energy and generates less waste, not only reducing production costs but also minimizing its impact on the environment.

During the experiment, the team found that polymer filaments doped with copper nanoparticles exhibited a special phenomenon: when subjected to high current, the material showed a significant increase in resistance; And once the power supply is stopped, its resistance quickly returns to its initial state. This characteristic allows the material to be used as a switching element, similar to transistors in semiconductors. The team attempted polymer filaments with various dopants, including carbon, carbon nanotubes, and graphene, but only the filaments containing copper nanoparticles exhibited self resetting ability.

Based on this phenomenon, the team believes that the thermal effect caused by current may cause copper particles to diffuse and increase resistance; After cooling, copper particles re aggregate and the resistance decreases accordingly. In addition, the process of polymer matrix transitioning from crystalline to amorphous state and then back may also contribute to the change in resistance.

Using this principle, the team has developed a new type of logic gate composed of copper doped polymer filaments that can control resistance changes by adjusting the input voltage.

In addition, adding other functional particles to polymer filaments can achieve more complex and diverse applications.

This achievement demonstrates the possibility of small businesses producing simple intelligent hardware independently in the future.

Logic gates are the basic units of digital logic circuits, and any complex logic circuit can be composed of these logic gates. Transistors can achieve switch control of output current and perform multiple logic gate functions through different circuit configurations. This time, the research team successfully utilized full 3D printing technology to produce active electronic device components that do not require semiconductor materials. Although the performance is not comparable to transistors, polymer filaments doped with copper nanoparticles already have basic control functions, and this material has low cost and less waste, which may become a "replacement" for transistors.

(Source: Science and Technology Daily)