By: Anna Herod, News Reporter

Research professors and undergraduate students of the Ingram School of Engineering have created an innovative ceramic hybrid transistor.

The transistor has the potential not only to protect electrical circuits from power surges but to allow computing devices to operate in harsh environments such as space. A transistor operates as an electronic switch while a varistor protects circuits from being destroyed by excess electricity during a power surge, according to an article by the American Ceramic Society explaining the researchers’ findings.

Transistors and varistors are typically separate devices. However, Raghvendra Kumar Pandey and his team created a device with transistors embedded within the varistors.

The device is cost-effective because these types of machines are normally made from high-quality silicon crystal, said research professor William Stapleton.

“So, what we had just built was a transistor made out of a ceramic material,” Stapleton said. “Building very high-quality crystalline silicon to make silicon circuits is an expensive process that requires very high purity materials and a clean room environment.”

Stapleton said creating the hybrid transistor out of ceramic, however, is literally “dirt-cheap.”

“You start with very cheap bulk material,” Stapleton said. “It doesn’t require a clean room environment and is actually kind of a dirty process. We aren’t anywhere near ready to build a microprocessor out of ceramic yet, but we’ve basically shown that it would be potentially possible to do so.”

Although the silicon chips in modern-day laptops and cellphones die when they reach the boiling point of water, the transistors made of ceramic maintain their electrical properties up to six times that temperature, he said.

“These ceramics are also inherently immune to radiation,” Stapleton said. “One of the biggest problems they have in the space station is that the background radiation in space scrambles data on the computers because the silicon is not immune to radiation.”

The researchers do not currently have access to facilities capable of making the hybrid transistor microscopic enough to be used in microelectronics, Pandey said. The researchers are shifting their attention to refining the process as much as possible to maximize the device’s efficiency.

“This discovery has brought a great feeling of personal achievement,” Pandey said. “One reason is we have discovered something that will have a very long-lasting life of use, if it doesn’t last forever.”

Pandey said he hand his researchers have a “moral obligation” to do something good for Texas State. He feels they have “helped elevate the prestige” of the university.

Since the engineering program does not yet offer graduate-level degrees, undergraduate students have been exposed to more advanced experiences, Stapleton said.

“Normally this sort of research is done by graduate students getting their masters or, more likely, even Ph.D. students,” Stapleton said. “We’ve been doing this with undergraduate students, which means the students we’ve been lucky enough to work with have been exposed to some things they normally wouldn’t see at this level, and they’ve stepped up and been incredibly productive and helpful.”

Pandey said although refinement of the technology may take many years, this discovery will one day bring the university a lot of money.

“Electrical engineering-wise, the transistor gives good practical use that no other device was previously providing,” Pandey said. “This is a very straightforward, simple device that can be produced in large quantities very cheaply. A lot needs to be done with the sophistication of it, but this is something that will be around for a long time.”

Anna Herod is a news reporter with the University Star where this story was originally published. It is republished here through a news partnership between the University Star and the San Marcos Corridor News