Japanese scientists thought of applying caffeic acid to the electrodes to speed up the current in the devices.
Physicists in Japan discovered that one of the components of coffee improves the performance of semiconductors for electronic devices. Details of the research were published on the website of the Institute of Advanced Industrial Sciences and Technologies.
Using a process called vacuum deposition, the Japanese team deposited a thin layer of caffeic acid onto a gold electrode embedded in an organic semiconductor — molecule by molecule depositing the material at a pressure well below atmospheric pressure. As a result, coffee particles settled on the electrode themselves, simplifying the movement of electric charge and accelerating the current 100 times. A similar effect was demonstrated by caffeic acid when interacting with electrodes made of silver, copper, iron, silicon oxide and indium-tin oxide.
“We found that the thin-film caffeic acid layer acts as a versatile electrode modification layer,” the researchers said. “The developed electrode modification technology can be applied to electrodes of organic semiconductor devices in general, as it can be applied regardless of the type of substrate materials”.
It is not enough to pour ordinary coffee on an electronic chip to increase the speed of a home computer, but the authors of the study consider their discovery an invention and assure that it can be applied in practice. For example, scientists propose to develop devices based on organic semiconductors from materials obtained from biological substances.
Organic semiconductor devices such as OLEDs and solar cells already exist today. They are flexible and inexpensive, but increase the amount of e-waste. Caffeic acid can be extracted from plants and used in electronics manufacturing to replace unstable chemicals that pollute the environment, especially water.
Previously, scientists had found something to replace silicon for the manufacture of semiconductor chips. Researchers from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in the USA have proven that boron arsenide conducts heat and electricity much better, and not only electrons, but also pass through itself, called “electron holes”.
Recently, scientists discovered how many cups of coffee you should drink per day to live longer. The study showed that the most beneficial for the body is a drink made from ground coffee beans.
Source: Focus
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