Based on its recent analysis of the spintronics markets for sensor applications, Frost + Sullivan recognizes Organic Spintronics with the 2008 European Frost + Sullivan Technology Innovation Award for its discovery of organic spintronics by combining organic semiconductors with ferromagnetic materials.
Most of the research in spintronics is centred on the use of inorganic semiconductors such as gallium arsenide, which are not suitable for room temperature operations. Organic Spintronics innovatively used organic semiconductors to successfully overcome this challenge.
Organic semiconductors are more feasible for the transport of spin polarization because of their low-scattering rate compared to inorganic semiconductors. The breakthrough discovery of organic spintronics is likely to enable real-world implementation of devices such as spin-based sensors.
"The benefits of organic semiconductors are manifold and extend to sensitivity, size, and power consumption of sensor systems," says Frost + Sullivan Research Analyst Sharmishta S. "The technology could also find application in memory elements, magnetic sensors, and logic elements such as spin field effect transistors (FETs)."
The company has also invented a unique thin film fabrication technology. The company has created a pulsed plasma deposition (PPD) system for the deposition of a large variety of inorganic and organic thin films. This was made possible by ablation of a target material using a fast pulse of electrons (100 ns) and deposition of the material onto the substrate. The system has a wide range of deposition rates and operation vacuum conditions that facilitate its use in diverse conditions of growth of thin films.
"The uniqueness of the system is the ability to transfer the chemical composition of the target to the film to enable the fabrication of the most complex thin films," notes Sharmishta S. "This comes with the advantage of low-operating temperatures that are conducive for the deposition on plastic substrates such as polyethylene terephthalate (PET)."
Compared to pulsed laser deposition (PLD), PPD offers enhanced benefits in terms of beam power density, repetition rate, and in particular, power efficiency while being simple in construction. It also consumes less power and is economically viable when there is a need to scale it to large area systems. All these characteristics together with the low cost make the PPD suitable for industrial applications contrary to PLD.
"Organic Spintronics has developed a wide area deposition PPD system that uses multiple guns for the fabrication of thin films on 4 in. substrates," observes Sharmishta S. "Organic Spintronics also establishes thin film deposition processes on demand and possesses a wide IP portfolio on PPD- based thin film fabrication processes."
OS development of organic Knudsen cells enable thin film deposition of organic semiconductors, which are finding greater use in plastic or flexible electronics and optoelectronics industries. This application is expected to open up huge markets in the future.
Each year, Frost + Sullivan presents this award to the company (or individual) that has carried out new research, which has resulted in innovation(s) that have or are expected to bring significant contributions to the industry in terms of adoption, change, and competitive posture. This award recognizes the quality and depth of a company's research and development program as well as the vision and risk-taking that enabled it to undertake such an endeavor.
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