mash-up of vacuum tube and MOSFET

[zztop7]

http://phys.org/news/2014-06-scientists-explore-mash-up-vacuum-tube.html

When considered purely as a medium for transporting charge, they said, vacuum wins over semiconductors. "Electrons propagate freely through the nothingness of a vacuum, whereas they suffer from collisions with the atoms in a solid (a process called crystal-lattice scattering). What's more, a vacuum isn't prone to the kind of radiation damage that plagues semiconductors, and it produces less noise and distortion than solid-state materials."
But now, the two scientists said the candidate they have been working to develop to replace the MOSFET, one that researchers have been dabbling with off and on for a while, is this vacuum-channel transistor, a bridge between traditional vacuum tube technology and modern semiconductor-fabrication techniques. "This curious hybrid combines the best aspects of vacuum tubes and transistors and can be made as small and as cheap as any solid-state device. Indeed, making them small is what eliminates the well-known drawbacks of vacuum tubes."


Read more at: http://phys.org/news/2014-06-scientists-explore-mash-up-vacuum-tube.html#jCp

zz.

 

[JonFo]

Interesting, but can they flow the kind of amperage that an audio amp would require?

 

[DonH50]

Interesting. Scientists have been dabbling with "micro-tubes" for decades now. Very difficult to realize in practice.

An ideal vacuum tube has lower distortion than a bipolar transistor, but an ideal MOSFET is lowest. However, there are many trades, and many practical issues that (as usual) make ideal theory moot (or at least unrealized) in most cases and for real devices.

 

[JackD201]

Don lots of new stuff coming out in your area of application. Not just these vacuum devices but also stuff like GaN. Any use for these things for audio applications? My understanding is that the intended use of these devices is for very, Very, VERY high frequencies.

 

[zztop7]

bridge between traditional vacuum tube technology and modern semiconductor-fabrication techniques. "This curious hybrid combines the best aspects of vacuum tubes and transistors and can be made as small and as cheap as any solid-state device. Indeed, making them small is what eliminates the well-known drawbacks of vacuum tubes."


Read more at: http://phys.org/news/2014-06-scientists-explore-mash-up-vacuum-tube.html#jCp

zz.

EXPERIMENT: Take a known great sounding system with solid state amps. Put one of the amps in a vacuum. See what happens. SIMPLE.

I know that you must use interconnects that will not leak & lose the vacuum, etc. And, maybe problems with certain capacitors or other components.

Just a thought for simplicity.

zz.

 

[DonH50]

Putting the amp in a vacuum does not change the device properties but I'm guessing you knew that.

Jack, very HF devices are designed for that and actually tend to make lousy audio devices for various technical reasons, noise being a biggie. However, while GaN may not fly due to thermal and various issues, SiC for power amps seems like a promising thing. I have never actually worked in SiC or GaN, but have designed in Si, SiGe, GaAs, InP, etc.

 

[JackD201]

Thanks for the reply DH