Nanoionics

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Nanoionics

A multidisciplinary scientific and industrial field of solid state ionics, dealing with ionic transport phenomena in solids, considers Nanoionics as its new division. ^[3] Nanoionics tries to describe, for example, diffusion&reactions, in terms that make sense only at a nanoscale, e.g., in terms of non-uniform (at a nanoscale) potential landscape.

There are two classes of solid-state ionic

The classical theory of diffusion and migration in solids is based on the notion of a diffusion coefficient, activation energy ^[6] and electrochemical potential. ^[7] This means that accepted is the picture of a hopping ion transport in the potential landscape where all barriers are of the same height (uniform potential relief). Despite the obvious difference of objects of solid state ionics and nanoionics-I, -II, the true new problem of fast ion transport and charge/

Being a branch of nanoscience and nanotechnology, nanoionics is unambiguously defined by its own objects (nanostructures with FIT), subject matter (properties, phenomena, effects, mechanisms of processes, and applications connected with FIT at nano-scale), method (interface design in nanosystems of superionic conductors), and the criterion (R/L ~1, where R is the length scale of device structures, and L is the characteristic length on which the properties, characteristics, and other parameters connected with FIT change drastically).

The International Technology Roadmap for Semiconductors (ITRS) relates nanoionics-based resistive switching memories to the category of "emerging research devices" ("ionic memory"). The area of close intersection of nanoelectronics and nanoionics had been called nanoelionics (1996). Now, the vision of future nanoelectronics constrained solely by fundamental ultimate limits is being formed in advanced research.^{[10][11][12][13]} The ultimate physical limits to computation^[14] are very far beyond the currently attained (10¹⁰ cm⁻², 10¹⁰ Hz) region. What kind of logic switches might be used at the near nm- and sub-nm peta-scale integration? The question was the subject matter already in,^[15] where the term "nanoelectronics" ^[16] was not used yet. Quantum mechanics constrains electronic distinguishable configurations by the tunneling effect at tera-scale. To overcome 10¹² cm⁻² bit density limit, atomic and ion configurations with a characteristic dimension of L <2 nm should be used in the information domain and materials with an effective mass of information carriers m* considerably larger than electronic ones are required: m* =13 m_e at L =1 nm, m* =53 m_e (L =0,5 nm) and m* =336 m_e (L =0,2 nm).^[13] Future short-sized devices may be nanoionic, i.e. based on the fast ion transport at the nanoscale, as it was first stated in.^[1]

Examples

The examples of

• Programmable metallization cell

References