Noise reduction for better sensors

New findings by researchers from the United States, Norway and Russia could lead to more sensitive sensors and detectors based on semiconductor electronics.

Their research has yielded a decisive step in identifying the origin of the universal ‘one-over-f’ (1/f) noise phenomenon; ‘f’ stands for ‘frequency.’

‘One-over-f noise appears almost everywhere, from electronic devices and fatigue in materials to traffic on roads, the distribution of stars in galaxies, and DNA sequences,’ said Valerii Vinokour of Argonne's Materials Science Division.

‘Finding the common origin of one-over-f noise in its many forms is one of the grand challenges of materials physics. Our theory establishes the origin and lower limit to one-over-f noise in semiconductor electronics, helping to optimise detectors for commercial application.’

Noise is a fluctuation in time, representing a deviation from the average. In nanoscale semiconductor electronics, the noise generated by the random motion of a single electron can be devastating, since there are so few electrons in the system.