Transistors, the workhorses of the electronics world, are
plagued by leakage current. This results in unnecessary energy losses, which is
why smartphones and laptops, for example, have to be recharged so often. Tom
van Hemert and Ray Hueting of the University of Twente’s MESA+ Institute for
Nanotechnology have shown that this leakage current can be radically reduced by
“squeezing” the transistor with a piezoelectric material (which expands or
contracts when an electrical charge is applied to it). Using this approach,
they have smashed the theoretical limit for leakage current. Tom van Hemert
will defend his PhD dissertation on 6 December.