Advanced Material for Newer Applications

Abstract

Silicon based components are the heart of today’s electronic devices. The improvisation and optimization of devices based on silicon components are reaching upper limits in terms of threshold in design complexity, power required for processing, consumption of energy, memory and heat dissipation through heat sinks. This has led to a quest for new materials. One such stream of materials called chalcogenide glasses comprising of one or more chalcogens as a constituent element exhibit fascinating properties and find applications is varied domains. These materials are amorphous semiconductors and are used in today’s electronic, optical and optoelectronic devices such as waveguides, biosensors, Phase Change Memory (PCM) which is a type of Non-Volatile RAM, planar optics and in realizing photonic integrated circuits.Chalcogenide materials are also suitable for sensing applications and in realizing solar cells. While Se-Te-As thin films finds application as photo sensor in image processing, Ge-As-Se compositions are used for photonics applications, Ge2Sb2Te5 is being used in PCM devices integrated with CMOS technology and Copper Sulfide (CuS) is used commonly in solar cells and in gas sensing. Amorphous Metal-Sulphide Microfibers is used in brain computing, As2S3 is used for reverse waveguide applications and so on. This paper reviews some of areas of application of chalcogenides.