[fordgtlover]

Why transistors are like fine wine
Ageing may be as important to electronics as it is to good wine. A plastic transistor doubles its performance if simply left to sit at room temperature for a week.

Cheap to mould, pentacene transistors are a promising candidate for organic electronics, However, when they are being built, molecules can misalign to form defects, which trap electrons and slow the transistors down.

Now Wolfgang Kalb’s team at the Swiss Federal institute of Technology in Zurich has found that if a newly made pentacene transistor is left to sit in a vacuum, the defects disappear naturally ([0711.1457] Defect healing at room temperature in pentacene thin films and improved transistor performance).

Self-healing typically requires heat, but in pentacene the “jostling” between molecules that occurs at room temperature is enough to realign the molecules and remove the defects.

[size=x-small](Source: New Scientist, 1 December 2007, p. 27)[/size]

 

[saint.panda]

I know this guy. He was an assistant for one of my profs. Would have been interesting to have a chat with him about burn-in.

 

[fordgtlover]

It seems that these transistors would be well and truly burned in by the time they arrived at your house.

 

[shigzeo]

well that solves it! do these work for the tiny transistors in the likes of computers or only the bigger ones like audio?