Solid Materials at www.japanese-home-gardens.com

The ability to create new and better devices rests primarily on the development of new materials or improved characteristics in older ones. This is especially true in the area of solid-state electronics (that branch of electronics dealing with conductivity in solid materials). There, each significant advance in materials research has led to applications that were previously impossible. It is also true that studies aimed at testing the feasibility of new devices often encourage the development of better materials.

Progress in electronics during the past months consisted of several outstanding improvements in previously discovered solid-state devices. These included: (1) development of techniques for producing new materials or previously known materials with superior characteristics, (2) design and manufacture of large-scale integrated circuits that perform extremely complex operations with improved reliability, (3) development of commercial solid-state microwave oscillators that can operate in a variety of modes at high power levels, (4) research leading to a better understanding of electroluminescence and development of highly efficient red and green light sources, and (5) significant new applications of lasers in the areas of picosecond pulse, and in nonlinear.

Two significant advances in materials during the past year have been (1) the growth of much better gallium arsenide and gallium phosphide single crystals through the use of liquid epitaxy techniques, and (2) the synthesis of new single-crystalline materials such as lithium tantalate and barium sodium niobate. The gallium arsenide and gallium phosphide crystals have been used in constructing improved solid-state lasers, electroluminescent lamps, and Gunn oscillators, while the latter materials have been used in nonlinear optical systems.