Probing Semiconductors with Femtosecond Pulses

FEB 01, 1990

Techniques that use laser pulses as short as three optical cycles are revealing fundamental properties of semiconductors and paving the way for new high‐speed electronic and optical devices.

DOI: 10.1063/1.881224

David H. Auston

In semiconductor microelectronics, small distances and high speeds are closely related. Transistors with base lengths of only a few tens of nanometers have electron transit times that can be less than 1 picosecond. Indeed, this very fact has motivated much of the intense interest in very‐small‐scale electronic devices: To make something faster, one generally must make it smaller.

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More about the authors

David H. Auston, Columbia University.