Electron gas on insulator's surface opens way to multifunctional transistors

Electron gas on insulator's surface opens way to multifunctional transistors: Now an unexpected discovery has burst through this technological barrier. An international team led by researchers at CNRS and Université Paris-Sud 11 has produced a two-dimensional metallic electron gas (2DEG) on the surface of SrTiO3. This conductive layer, approximately two nanometers thick, was obtained by vacuum-cleaving a piece of strontium titanate, a very simple and economical process. The constituent elements of SrTiO3 are natural resources available in large quantities, and the compound is non-toxic, unlike the materials most widely used in microelectronics today (bismuth tellurides).