Carbon (C) and Silicon Germanium (SiGe) work like a magic sauce. At least in small concentrations, they make everything taste better. It is remarkable enough that SiGe, a new material, and the heterobipolar transistor, a new device, appear on the brink of impacting the exploding wireless market. The addition of C to SiGe, albeit in small concentrations, looks to have breakthrough potential. Here, at last, is proof that materials science can put a rocket booster on the silicon-mind, the silicon transistor.
Scientific excitement arises, as always, from the new possibilities a multicomponent...