JOAN CARTAN-HANSEN, HOST: Understanding the states of matter, how they act and react, is essential for scientists to invent or improve things.

Let's meet a materials scientist and his team who use the different states of matter to find a solution that might just impact the world.

[MUSIC] (video game sounds) STUDENT ONE: Your game system seems to be smelling funny.

STUDENT TWO: I know, something is wrong with it.

CARTAN-HANSEN: Maybe it's a problem with your chips.

STUDENT ONE: What?

CARTAN-HANSEN: The silicon chips that run your gaming console.

STUDENT TWO: What do you mean?

CARTAN-HANSEN: Well, come and see!

[Wooshing] CARTAN-HANSEN: These are silicon chips, designed with materials that work together.

They act as the brain of your gaming console.

Electricity flows through the very tiny paths called circuits.

They use a computer language to instruct the console what to do.

Dave Estrada, professor of material science engineering, studies the construction of semi-conductor chips.

DAVE ESTRADA: Your transistors can be made of different semiconductors, which those can then be wired up into other things.

You can then take all those building blocks and create large circuits.

That could be memory devices, memory chips, could be computer processing units, could be graphic processing units.

And so there you're looking at wiring together billions and billions of transistors to create one chip.

CARTAN-HANSEN: Semiconductor chips are getting so complicated that they put off a lot of heat and use a lot of energy.

And that causes problems.

ESTRADA: We have reached a fundamental limit where we put so many transistors on the existing silicon that we just can't get the heat out anymore.

And so, we're losing control of the transistors, and we just can't sustainably add more transistors onto silicon, or the chip will melt.

So, we need new materials to cut down the energy consumption at this global scale.

CARTAN-HANSEN: So, that's what he and his team are doing in the materials lab.

They're finding new materials to create new types of semiconductors.

And they do it using the different properties found in states of matter.

ESTRADA: Here at Boise State, we're using a process called metal-organic chemical vapor deposition.

And this process takes different chemicals through the various states of matter to create solid semiconductor films.

So we start with a metal containing molecule that is typically either in a liquid state of matter, or a solid state of matter, by applying heat, we can turn that into a vapor phase, carry that to the reaction chamber, where we'll mix with other gases to form molecules, which will condense on the surface and form a solid crystal.

CARTAN-HANSEN: The gases condense into films that can be patterned on the silicon chip forming circuits, kind of like dew forms on the grass.

ESTRADA: The little patterns are different transistor structures or different types of test structures.

So, we can measure the electrical properties of these films after they've been deposited.

CARTAN-HANSEN: The coating on the silicon chip is about three atoms thick.

To compare, a single stand of your hair is between half a million and a million atoms thick.

ESTRADA: We focus on making the simple, most fundamental building blocks for integrated circuits with new materials to kind of show how these materials would behave at the most fundamental level, and then can they then be applied by industry into larger integrated circuits.

CARTAN-HANSEN: Understanding how matter acts when it's in its different states- solid, liquid, gas-is key to lots of different scientific processes.

Scientists like chemists, physicists and material scientists study states of matter to explain, even to predict, how things will react to a change in temperature.

This allows scientists to create new uses, like semiconductor chips.

ESTRADA: I think the semiconductor business in general is now critical to the entire global economy because information is shared largely through the internet.

We rely on GPS and the satellites, right to kind of help navigate and transfer information around the world.

So, at the heart of all this technology, all digital technology are semiconductors, so its very critical.

[swooshing sound] STUDENTS TOGETHER: Whoa!

STUDENT ONE: That was amazing!

STUDENT TWO: Who knew states of matter could be so important?

CARTAN-HANSEN: Hey, I found out what was wrong with your game console.

You spilled some potato chips on it and a few slivers got inside and burned up.

STUDENT ONE: So, it was a problem with the chips.

[sigh] CARTAN-HANSEN: If you want to learn more about the states of matter, check out the science trek website.

You'll find it at science trek dot org.

[MUSIC] ANNOUNCER: Presentation of Science Trek on Idaho Public Television is made possible through the generous support of the Laura Moore Cunningham Foundation, committed to fulfilling the Moore and Bettis family legacy of building the great state of Idaho.

By the Idaho National Laboratory, mentoring talent and finding solutions for energy and security challenges, by the Friends of Idaho Public Television and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.