Technique triggers electronic circuits to self-destruct

Engineers have developed a new way of triggering electronic circuits to self-destruct, an advance that could help protect sensitive data and one day be used in biomedicine.

This ability to self-destruct is fundamental to transient electronics, in which key portions of a circuit, or the whole circuit itself, can discreetly disintegrate or dissolve.

No harmful by-products are released upon vaporisation, so engineers from Cornell University and Honeywell Aerospace foresee biomedical and environmental applications along with data protection.

According to Cornell, some transient electronics use soluble conductors that dissolve when contacted by water, requiring the presence of moisture. Others disintegrate when they reach a specific temperature, requiring a heating element and power source to be attached.

The advance from Cornell is said to use a silicon-dioxide microchip attached to a polycarbonate shell that contains microscopic cavities filled with rubidium and sodium biflouride, chemicals that can thermally react and decompose the microchip.