A high-performance, low-power silicon nanoscale sensor is being developed by engineers from The University of Southampton’s School of Electronics and Computer Science as part of a three-year European FP7-funded NEMSIC (Nano-electro-mechanical-system-integrated-circuits) project.

Project leader Professor Hiroshi Mizuta, and his team at ECS will co-integrate single-electron transistors (SETs) and nano-electro-mechanical systems (NEMS) on a single silicon technology platform to create a small, sensitve sensor with low-power consumption.

Professor Mizuta explained: “Power consumption is a big issue at the moment as devices use current whether they are switched off and on.

“The single-electron transistor combined with the NEM device technology reduces power consumption at both ON and OFF states of the sensor. Stand-by power is reduced to zero by having a complete sleep with the NEM switch when it is off.’

Professor Mizuta and his team will develop the single-electron transistor using a suspended silicon nanobridge which will work as an extremely sensitive detector for biological and chemical molecules.

Mizuta continued: “This is the first time that anyone has combined these two nanotechnologies to develop a smart sensor. The traditional CMOS (Complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor) approach has many limitations so we needed to find a new approach.”

The sensing devices will need to be made to the nanoscale, which will be made possible by the new electron beam lithography machine which will be available in the new ECS Mountbatten building when it opens in a few months.

Mizuta concluded: “This sensor will be the smallest and use less power than any other on the market. The fact that it will be at the nanoscale means that it will be able to detect either single-charge transfer and/or change in masses caused by a small amount of chemical and biological molecules electrically.”