New nanowire architectures boost computers' processing power

Valerio Piazza characterizes nanowires to optimize their electrical properties © 2021 EPFL Alain Herzog - Valerio Piazza is creating new 3D architectures built from an inventive form of nanowire. His research aims to push the boundaries of miniaturization and pave the way to more powerful electronic devices. He has just won the 2020 Piaget Scientific Award, whose prize money will fund his work at EPFL for a year. Piazza, a scientist at EPFL's Laboratory of Semiconductor Materials, studies semiconductors on a nano scale. His focus is nanowires, or nanostructures made of semiconducting materials, and his goal is to move transistors beyond their saturation point. That's because transistors are everywhere - in cars, traffic lights, and even coffee makers - but their miniaturization capacity is reaching a limit because existing designs are nearly saturated. "The main challenges we now face in processing power relate to overcoming the transistor saturation point, which we can do with nanowires and other kinds of nanostructures," says Piazza 2020 Piaget Scientific Award.