Nanoworld “Snow Blowers” Carve Straight Channels In Semiconductor Surfaces

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Scientists from the National Institute of Standards and Technology and IBM have devised a method of using gold nanoparticles as nano snow blowers to carve channels on the surface of semiconductors.

First, they patterned the surface of the semiconductor by selectively coating it with a gold layer only a few nanometers thick. Upon heating, the film breaks up into tiny particles that become droplets. The underlying indium phosphide dissolves into the gold nanoparticles above, creating a gold alloy. Then, heated water vapor is introduced into the system. At temperatures below 300 degrees Celsius (572 degrees Fahrenheit), the tiny gold-alloy particles, now swathed with water molecules, etch nanoscale pits into the indium phosphide.
 
Don't get your hopes up on that process. Indium had a 10 year supply as of a few years ago.
 
Don't get your hopes up on that process. Indium had a 10 year supply as of a few years ago.

That might be old information. Wikipedia had this junk to say about the supply of indium:

Occurrence

In Earth's crust, indium occurs only in the form of its compounds, except occasionally as rare grains of free metal of no commercial importance. Indium is 68th most abundant element in Earth's crust at approximately 160 ppb, making indium approximately as abundant as cadmium.[18] Fewer than 10 indium minerals are known, such as dzhalindite (In(OH)3) and indite (FeIn2S4),[19] but none of these occurs in significant deposits.

Based on content of indium in zinc ore stocks, there is a worldwide reserve of approximately 6,000 tonnes of economically viable indium.[20] However, the Indium Corporation, the largest processor of indium, claims that, on the basis of increasing recovery yields during extraction, recovery from a wider range of base metals (including tin, copper and other polymetallic deposits) and new mining investments, the long-term supply of indium is sustainable, reliable, and sufficient to meet increasing future demands.[21] This conclusion may be reasonable considering that silver, which is one-third as abundant as indium in Earth's crust,[22] is currently mined at approximately 18,300 tonnes per year,[23] which is 40 times greater than current indium mining rates.

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indium
 
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