ADEPT - Advanced Devices by ElectroPlaTing

几乎所有的现代技术和生活都是由沉积和成型材料的方法所支撑的。例如，为我们的移动的手机、平板电脑等供电的晶体管由硅区域组成，其尺寸现在只有几十个原子的大小。虽然目前的材料沉积技术确实令人印象深刻，但仍然需要更创新，更好和更低成本的方法来沉积技术上重要的材料，以提高能源效率，改善其功能特性并突破潜在的新市场。当我们考虑电子和电信中使用的狭窄范围之外的材料时，情况尤其如此。这方面的一个明显例子是热电材料领域，它已经可以用于冰箱等设备，但更重要的是直接从废热发电。基础科学已经表明，如果我们能够以密集的平行阵列的形式生产这种材料，每个阵列只有10-100个原子，这些设备的效率将大大提高。然而，目前还不存在以这种尺寸规模获得必要的高质量材料的技术。在计算机存储器领域，正在开发其电阻可以通过快速加热和冷却而改变的材料，即所谓的相变材料。这些材料广泛应用的关键障碍是它们相对较高的开关能量和数十亿次开关循环的可靠性。如果存在一种材料沉积技术，使我们能够存款比目前所能实现的更小的元素，这些问题就可以克服。最后，用于热（即红外）传感相机的材料可以具有更广泛的应用范围，例如，如果沉积它们的成本不是那么高，则可以用于家庭安全和智能电器之间的短距离通信。该项目将直接解决这些挑战，通过建立在我们最近在使用电沉积方面的突破，其中电流导致材料从不寻常的“弱配位”溶剂中沉积，以开发沉积高质量材料的方法，用于热电器件，相变存储器和红外传感器和相机领域的先进应用。

Almost the whole of modern technology and life is underpinned by methods for depositing and shaping materials. For instance the transistors which power our mobile phones, tablets, etc. consist of areas of silicon whose dimensions are now of the order of only tens of atoms across. Whilst current materials deposition technologies are truly impressive, there is still a need for more innovative, better and reduced cost methods for depositing technologically important materials in order to increase energy efficiency, improve their functional properties and break through into potential new markets. This is particularly true when we consider materials beyond the narrow range of those used in electronics and telecoms. A clear example of this is in the field of thermoelectric materials which can already be used in devices such as refrigerators, but more importantly in generating electricity directly from waste heat. Fundamental science has shown that if we could produce such materials in the form of dense parallel arrays of ultrathin wires that are each only 10-100 atoms across, the efficiency of these devices would be massively enhanced. However, the technology to achieve the necessary high quality materials at this size scale does not currently exist. In the field of computer memory, materials whose electrical resistances can be altered by rapid heating and cooling, so called phase change materials, are being developed The key barriers to the wide spread application of these materials are their relatively high switching energy and reliability of many billions of switching cycles. These could be overcome if a materials deposition technique existed which allowed us to deposit smaller elements than can currently be achieved. Finally the materials that are used in heat, i.e. infrared, sensing cameras could have a much wider range of applications, e.g. in home security and short range communications between smart appliances, if the cost of depositing them wasn't so high. This project will directly address these challenges, by building upon our recent breakthroughs in using electrodeposition, in which an electrical current causes the deposition of a material, from unusual, 'weakly-coordinating' solvents, to develop methods for depositing high quality materials for advanced applications in the fields of thermoelectric devices, phase change memory and infrared sensors and cameras.