Swiss Foundation gives £9.3m for research into atomic-scale comms chips
Centre for Single-Atom Electronics and Photonics will focus on developing new types of circuits for communications networks
The Werner Siemens-Foundation has donated around £9.3 million (CHF 12 million) to establish a Centre for Single-Atom Electronics and Photonics to develop new types of integrated circuits for communications networks.
The centre will be a joint venture between ETH Zurich and the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT), coordinated by ETH Professor Juerg Leuthold from the Institute of Electromagnetic Fields.
The focus will be on developing and researching new types of integrated circuits with components that operate at the level of individual atoms but can still be integrated into existing industrial CMOS technology. The network components will not only include transistors but modulators and detectors as well.
"At the new centre, we plan to pursue an innovative research approach that is based on our latest findings, which show that components with atomic dimensions not only work reliably, but are also more energy-efficient," says Leuthold. Among other things, the centre will make use of the single-atom transistor developed by Thomas Schimmel at KIT in 2004.
The first step will be for the researchers from ETH Zurich and KIT to take the initial prototypes and use them to develop new logic and memory modules. The second step will be to develop the first simple chips for a new generation of atomic-scale components. The researchers estimate that this will reduce size by a factor of 100 to 1,000 and energy consumption by the same order of magnitude compared to CMOS circuits.
A faster road to practical applications
"The generous donation from the Werner Siemens-Foundation provides a unique opportunity to pool the skills of KIT and ETH in the field of electronics and photonics of individual electrons. This will strengthen fundamental research and accelerate the translation into practical applications," says ETH President Lino Guzzella.
"I would like to thank the Werner Siemens-Foundation for enabling KIT and ETH Zurich to complement each other's expertise within this cross-border cooperation, which I am certain will benefit research, teaching and innovation on both sides," says Holger Hanselka, President of KIT.
"We hope our donation will lead to a major breakthrough in the area of communications technology," says Hubert Keiber, chair of rrustees of the Werner Siemens-Foundation. According to Keiber, the research to be conducted at the Centre for Single-Atom Electronics and Photonics will be revolution-ary, making it a good match for the foundation's portfolio. This is already the Werner Siemens-Foundation's third donation to ETH Zurich Foundation. The partnership goes all the way back to 2004.
The new centre is expected to start its work on 1 January 2018.
