Monday 23 August 2021

Stocks Time To Exit. Dunkirk 2.0.

 Baltic Dry Index. 4092 +116  Brent Crude 66.33

Spot Gold 1788

Coronavirus Cases 02/04/20 World 1,000,000

Deaths 53,100

Coronavirus Cases 23/08/21 World 212,597,218

Deaths 4,444,673

Battle of Dinant August 23, 1914.

The Battle of Dinant was an engagement fought by French and German forces in and around the Belgian town of Dinant in the First World War, during the German invasion of Belgium.

----On 23 August, the Germans attacked Dinant again, under the impression that the town was full of francs-tireurs (free shooters; terrorists to the Germans) and massacred 674 unarmed Belgian civilians, while fighting the French, who were dug in along the west bank and on the east end of the bridge. The massacre was a systematic attack on assumed civilian resisters and was the largest German atrocity perpetrated during the invasion, which became known as The Rape of Belgium.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Dinant 

The stock casinos are just under all-time highs, yet to this old dinosaur market trader, something is seriously wrong. It’s time to get out. 

Yes, I know the Fed is monetising like a drunken sailor and has everyone’s back covered in stocks.  There hasn’t been a mere 5% correction in US stock indexes in over 200 days. The Fedster’s simply won’t allow it. But nothing is right in the current market.

When a sea change occurs, aka a panic, getting out first before panic sets in always beats getting out last. Picking up dimes in front of a steamroller isn’t investing, it's just foolish.

So why do I think it is time to get out and stay out for some time? 

Well, there’s the growing fiasco in Afghanistan for one thing. President Biden’s, America’s, GB’s, NATO’s credibility are all shot and lying in the gutter. And it could easily get far worse if a shooting war breaks out there.

Given the state of the Biden disaster even without a shooting war, it’s hard to see 78 year old President Biden serving out his full term.

In the real global economy far from the central bankster fuelled global stock casinos, food price inflation is now surging in much of the world, with far more still to come. There is no good upside to food price inflation.

Also, in the real global economy we have a shipping crisis.  Shipping from China to America and Europe has never been more disrupted or expensive. A Christmas shopping retail slump is looming into view.

Very shortly, much of the Central Bankster Magic Money Tree free fiat money programs are about to start getting slimmed down. 

In energy pricing, even with the recent slight pull back in oil and gas prices, with winter coming soon, both are more likely to start rising again rather than continue falling. Going into winter, Europe is chronically low on natural gas inventory.

Finally, short term there’s this week’s virtual Fedster junket at Jackson Hole. While President Biden’s pet Fed Chairman isn’t likely to rock the boat, Chairman Powell’s inflation boat is already rocking badly as it is.  Bad things are more likely to lie ahead than good things, it seems to this old dinosaur market watcher. 

And let’s not get started on Washington, District of Crooks politics now likely to drop all pretense of civility given the “Dunkirk 2.0” rescue underway in Kabul.

As I said, nothing is right about stocks in the stratosphere trading on fumes in current conditions. It’s time to stand back. Hopefully, sell out into any fantasy rallies.

Major Asia markets rise nearly 2%; Hong Kong’s Hang Seng looks set to bounce from bear territory

SINGAPORE — Stocks in Asia-Pacific rose in Monday trade as Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index bounced back after falling into a bear market last week.

By Monday afternoon in Hong Kong, the Hang Seng index rose 1.81%, after shares of Chinese tech giant Tencent rose nearly 3% while Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing surged almost 6%.

Heavy losses last week left the Hang Seng index more than 20% below its mid-February high as regulatory uncertainty clouded the outlook for Chinese technology companies.

Mainland Chinese stocks also rose, with the Shanghai composite up 1% while the Shenzhen component gained 1.434%.

The Nikkei 225 in Japan rose 1.82% while the Topix index jumped 1.9%.

South Korea’s Kospi gained 1.52%. Shares of LG Chem, however, plunged around 10%. On Friday, General Motors said it was expanding its recall of Chevrolet Bolt EVs after finding manufacturing defects in certain battery cells produced at LG manufacturing facilities.

In Australia, the S&P/ASX 200 edged 0.29% higher.

MSCI’s broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan rose 1.49%.

Monday’s gains for Asia-Pacific stocks came on the back of losses last week. Concerns like the potential tapering by the U.S. Federal Reserve as well as the spread of the delta Covid-19 variant continue to weigh on investor sentiment.

Oil prices were higher in the afternoon of Asia trading hours, with international benchmark Brent crude futures up 1.73% to $66.31 per barrel. U.S. crude futures advanced 1.71% to $63.20 per barrel.

https://www.cnbc.com/2021/08/23/asia-markets-hong-kong-hang-seng-index-federal-reserve-covid-currencies-oil.html

China says foreign trade may face more complicated situation next year

August 23, 2021

President Joe Biden on Sunday said his administration is considering extending an Aug. 31 deadline to exit Afghanistan.

In a press conference, Biden said the U.S. has a “long way to go and a lot could still go wrong” amid the chaotic evacuation of Americans and Afghan allies from Kabul after the Taliban took over Afghanistan one week ago.

“The evacuation of thousands of people from Kabul is going to be hard and painful no matter when it started, when we began,” the president said during a press conference at the White House. He said that “our hope is that we will not have to extend” the deadline.

“It would have been true if we had started a month ago, or a month from now. There is no way to evacuate this many people without pain,” Biden said.

The Biden administration is facing criticism of its handling of the overall U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan. The withdrawal, announced earlier this year, has been beset by chaos.

Thousands of people have crowded the Kabul airport and some even plunged to their deaths after clinging to the exterior of a U.S. military aircraft while attempting to leave the country. Seven Afghan civilians were killed in crowds attempting the enter Kabul’s airport, according to the British military.

The president said U.S. forces continue to make progress on evacuations from Kabul. Up to 33,000 people have been evacuated since July, including 28,000 since August 14 and 11,000 over the weekend, Biden said.

More

https://www.cnbc.com/2021/08/22/biden-afghanistan-evacuation-us-has-long-way-to-go.html

A ‘Pitiful, Helpless Giant’ in Afghanistan

Time for a NATO military operation to rescue those trapped behind Taliban lines.

Aug. 20, 2021 6:51 pm ET

President Biden provided an update Friday on the emergency evacuation effort in Kabul, and as usual he was his own worst advocate. The President’s optimistic view doesn’t fit the chaos on the ground or the fact that the mission continues to be hostage to the goodwill of the Taliban.

“We’ve made significant progress,” Mr. Biden said, taking credit for “one of the largest, most difficult airlifts in history.” If you didn’t know better, you’d think he was describing a humanitarian airlift in Haiti rather than the desperate rescue of Americans trapped behind enemy lines.

It’s good news that U.S. troops finally control the Kabul airport and its single runway, though that’s all the allies control. It’s also good that 18,000 people have been evacuated since the Taliban took control of the capital. But the U.S. still doesn’t know how many Americans are in the country, and the U.S. Embassy warned this week that “the United States government cannot ensure safe passage to the Hamid Karzai International Airport.”

Mr. Biden said Friday that “we’re in constant contact with the Taliban,” who he says are letting Americans with passports through their checkpoints. But it’s distressing to hear a Commander in Chief admit that he’s relying on the promises of jihadists who have spent years killing Americans. Mr. Biden even suggested they’ll let Americans pass because, well, they need to make a good impression on the world community. Lovely.

The situation is worse for the thousands of Afghans who have applied for entry to the U.S. through the Special Immigrant Visa (SIV) program. Including families, they total 50,000 or more. Mr. Biden vowed to evacuate them as well, as a matter of national honor.

But the Taliban have set up checkpoints throughout Kabul, making it difficult or impossible for some to reach the airport. Americans and Afghans trapped in other provinces face an even more daunting journey. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, asked Wednesday whether the U.S. could rescue Americans who can’t reach the airport, replied, “I don’t have the capability to go out and extend operations currently into Kabul.” What an extraordinary expression of American helplessness.

Some of America’s European allies have taken a less defeatist approach. Elite French police units left the airport and rescued their citizens and Afghans from the French embassy. Media reports say British troops left the airport as well, and two German helicopters will be arriving in the country this weekend to assist with evacuations.

Mr. Biden boasted Friday about the U.S. coordination with these NATO countries, though our sources say there is much frustration over U.S. risk-aversion. If Mr. Biden believes what he says, he should organize a joint military operation to go beyond the airport and get people out. It isn’t clear that the U.S. can complete a rapid and successful evacuation of foreigners and loyal Afghans without an aggressive military component.

More

https://www.wsj.com/articles/detached-from-afghanistan-reality-joe-biden-lloyd-austin-taliban-11629496129?mod=opinion_lead_pos1

Fire the military and intelligence bigs who bungled Afghanistan — now

By Glenn H. Reynolds   August 18, 2021 5:49pm

There are many lessons to learn from the disastrous US pullout from Afghanistan, but there is one that we should take home right now: Failure must be punished.

The United States has been in Afghanistan for almost 20 years. It has been obvious for the last few years that we would be leaving soon. Former President Donald Trump wanted to leave Afghanistan, but the generals managed to slow him down and wait him out. Instead of making plans, they stonewalled.

When President Joe Biden ordered them to get out, there wasn’t a lot of time for planning, but they managed to get what they did wrong.  

US forces fled Bagram under cover of darkness, with no warning to anyone. (But botched even that, turning off the lights as they left, which gave looters free rein for many hours before Afghan officials showed up.)

Not only did that midnight skedaddle deprive us of a valuable resource (we could use a secure airfield about now), it signaled weakness to the Afghans on both sides of that country’s civil war. When the Soviets left Afghanistan, they were defeated, but they left in order; we snuck out like a guilty lover with a husband approaching the front door.

Our efforts were marked by institutional failure at every level, from the lack of planning at the top to the spooks who told us, last Thursday, that the Afghan army might hold out for more than 90 days (it lasted fewer than 90 hours). These are the same intelligence agencies, by the way, that spent four years promoting the exploded “Russian-collusion” fable.

Meanwhile, over the past few months, Gen. Mark Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, has been jabbering about “white rage” and helping our soldiers master the subtle dialectics of Ibram X. Kendi. We would have been better off if he had read Clausewitz and Sun Tzu, though Milley did inform us that he has read Karl Marx.

This is the biggest foreign failure in most Americans’ lifetimes, and there needs to be an accounting. The normal course of business after government bungling nowadays is that everyone involved tut-tuts a bit, then gets a raise and a promotion, while the government goes back to business as usual.

More

https://nypost.com/2021/08/18/fire-military-and-intelligence-bigs-who-bungled-afghanistan-now/?utm_source=email_sitebuttons&utm_medium=site%20buttons&utm_campaign=site%20buttons

Finally, in business news, more on that Chevrolet EV fire risk recall. In addition to burning down cars and homes, though thankfully not yet people, it’s burning a big hole in the GM balance sheet.

So, you really, really, really want an electric vehicle. Better check the home insurance first, install a massive multi gallon sprinkler system and leave the EV parked outside.

Don’t worry no one’s going to steal it. Car thieves aren’t that daft.

GM to spend $1 billion to expand Chevy Bolt EV recall due to fires

Published Fri, Aug 20 2021 4:45 PM EDT Updated Fri, Aug 20 2021 6:33 PM EDT

DETROIT — General Motors on Friday said it is expanding its recent recall of Chevrolet Bolt EVs to newer models of the electric car due to potential fire risk.

The recall expansion is expected to cost the automaker an additional $1 billion, bringing the total to $1.8 billion to replace potentially defective battery modules in the vehicles.

GM said about 73,000 vehicles in the U.S. and Canada are being added to the recall from the 2019-2022 model years, including a recently launched larger version of the car called the Bolt EUV. The former recall involved about 69,000 of the cars globally from the 2017-2019 model years, including nearly 51,000 in the U.S.

The expanded recall now includes all Bolt EV models ever produced, casting a shadow over GM’s first mainstream electric vehicle, as it attempts to transition to exclusively sell EVs by 2035. It also adds to billions of dollars in problems for new EVs amid the Biden administration’s push for 50% of all new cars sold to be electric vehicles by 2030.

The stock closed Friday’s session at $48.80, down less than 1%.

GM said it is pursuing reimbursement commitments from EV battery supplier LG Energy Solution, which produced the defective parts in plants in South Korea and Michigan. Parts from the U.S. plant were previously not involved in the recall.

The automaker plans to replace the vehicle’s costly battery cell modules. GM also said it is working with LG to rectify the cause of the defects and increase production of the new modules.

“Our focus on safety and doing the right thing for our customers guides every decision we make at GM,” Doug Parks, a GM executive vice president who oversees products, purchasing and supply chains, said in a release. “As leaders in the transition to an all-electric future, we know that building and maintaining trust is critical. GM customers can be confident in our commitment to taking the steps to ensure the safety of these vehicles.”

The expansion follows the companies finding that the batteries for these vehicles may have two manufacturing defects — a torn anode tab and folded separator — present in the same battery cell, which increases the risk of fire.

GM has confirmed one fire in the new population of recalled vehicles. That’s in addition to at least nine previous confirmed fires in the first round of vehicles that were recalled.

GM also said it will notify customers when replacement parts are ready.

In the meantime, GM is asking affected Bolt EV owners to set their vehicles to a 90% state of charge limitation using Hilltop Reserve mode (for 2017-2018 model years) or Target Charge Level (for 2019 model year) mode.

GM also is asking owners to avoid depleting their battery below approximately 70 miles of remaining range and, as it advised last week, continue to not park their vehicles inside or charge them unattended overnight “out of an abundance of caution.”

https://www.cnbc.com/2021/08/20/gm-to-spend-1-billion-to-expand-chevy-bolt-ev-recall-due-to-fires.html

  

Global Inflation Watch.          

Given our Magic Money Tree central banksters and our spendthrift politicians,  inflation now needs an entire section of its own. 

Shortfall of 225,000 properties as average house price jumps to £338k

Sunday 22 August 2021 12:07 pm

Across Britain, the average asking price for a home is now £21,389 higher than it was just six months ago.

The average price tag has jumped to a new record high for the fourth month in a row, reaching £338,447 in July, according to property website Rightmove. The website said the first half of this year was the busiest it has ever recorded.

With the first half of 2021 seeing 140,000 more sales being agreed and 85,000 fewer new listings than the long-term average, the surge in activity has triggered a shortfall of 225,000 homes for sale, Rightmove said.

The average number of available properties for sale per estate agency branch is at a new record low of 16 properties, compared with a longer-term average for this time of year of 31, according to the website.

Stamp duty holiday

The stamp duty holiday has helped to push up demand. The holiday in England and Northern Ireland was tapered from the start of July and will end this autumn.

Rightmove said detached homes with four bedrooms or more are facing the biggest imbalances in terms of demand versus supply.

These have seen a surge of 39 per cent in the number of sales being agreed, and a drop of 15 per cent in the number coming to market when compared with the first six months of 2019.

The company added that, more positively, first-time buyers will find that their typical sector of properties with two bedrooms or fewer has virtually the same supply levels as in 2019 and the stock shortage is less acute.

More

https://www.cityam.com/shortfall-of-225000-properties/

Why You Can’t Find Everything You Want at Grocery Stores

Labor shortages, raw materials’ scarcity make supermarket supplies unpredictable; some executives say problems are worse than spring 2020’s dearth

Aug. 22, 2021 8:00 am ET

Grocery-store chains are still battling supply challenges that some executives said are as bad as what they saw in spring 2020, when hoarding left holes in stocks of some staples.

Industry executives say new problems are arising weekly, driven by shortages of labor and raw materials. Groceries including frozen waffles and beverages remain scarce as some food companies anticipate disruptions lasting into 2022. A wider range of products is running short and logistical challenges are compounding for many retailers.

Donny Rouse, chief executive of Louisiana-based Rouses Markets, said he is struggling to fill shelves as his company runs low on everything from pet food to canned goods. The chain of more than 60 supermarkets is sometimes receiving as little as 40% of what it orders, prompting Mr. Rouse and his staff to try to secure products earlier and more often. Before the pandemic, Rouses received well over 90% of its orders.

“It is difficult for customers to get everything they want to get,” said Mr. Rouse, grandson of the chain’s founder.

Many grocery chains said that it is hard to predict how complete or on-time their deliveries will be due to limited guidance from suppliers, and executives said there is often little recourse when trucks show up with a fraction of what was ordered. Demand is higher than expected by retailers, with monthly sales up about 14% from two years ago and 3% from a year ago, according to data from research firm IRI.

To keep stores stocked, retailers are rethinking when and how to procure products they sell. Some are carrying fewer flavors or sizes, selling different brands and gathering inventory whenever possible. Regional and smaller grocers are struggling more than the biggest chains, industry executives said.

Albertsons ACI 0.66% Cos. and other big grocers said they are also feeling the impact of labor and commodity challenges but that their supply picture has improved since last year. Some, including Ahold Delhaize USA, said they have greater control of their inventory because they have their own vehicles and drivers.

----After stores ran short of toilet paper and canned soup in the early days of the pandemic, food manufacturers now are confronting new problems. Resin, aluminum and other raw materials used for packaging are running short, and many producers are giving priority to their most popular items, retailers said. Industry executives said manufacturers are unable to produce enough items to meet demand, with many employees staying home because of the coronavirus or because they have received rounds of stimulus checks. Advocates of the stimulus aid have said such federal coronavirus-relief efforts shield households from sudden income drops and help low earners.

More

https://outlook.live.com/mail/inbox/id/AQMkADAwATEyODM3LTRjMmMtYzM0NAAtMDACLTAwCgBGAAADQRNns3806EGEdmuacr5nJgcA7UaNFSPVKkyjNNpztB6gvQAAAgEMAAAA7UaNFSPVKkyjNNpztB6gvQAFZOHI0gAAAA%3D%3D

Below, why a “green energy” economy may not be possible anyway, and if it is, it won’t be quick and it will be very inflationary, setting off a new long-term commodity Supercycle. Probably the largest seen so far.

The “New Energy Economy”: An Exercise in Magical Thinking

https://media4.manhattan-institute.org/sites/default/files/R-0319-MM.pdf

Mines, Minerals, and "Green" Energy: A Reality Check

https://www.manhattan-institute.org/mines-minerals-and-green-energy-reality-check

"An Environmental Disaster": An EV Battery Metals Crunch Is On The Horizon As The Industry Races To Recycle

by Tyler Durden Monday, Aug 02, 2021 - 08:40 PM

https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/environmental-disaster-ev-battery-metals-crunch-horizon-industry-races-recycle

Covid-19 Corner                       

This section will continue until it becomes unneeded.

Lockdowns or vaccines? 3 Pacific nations try diverging paths

WELLINGTON, New Zealand (AP) — Cheryl Simpson was supposed to be celebrating her 60th birthday over lunch with friends but instead found herself confined to her Auckland home.

The discovery of a single local COVID-19 case in New Zealand was enough for the government to put the entire country into strict lockdown this past week. While others might see that as draconian, New Zealanders generally support such measures because they worked so well in the past.

“I’m happy to go into lockdown, even though I don’t like it,” said Simpson, owner of a day care center for dogs that is now closed because of the precautions. She said she wants the country to crush the latest outbreak: “I’d like to knock the bloody thing on the head.”

Elsewhere around the Pacific, though, Japan is resisting such measures in the face of a record-breaking surge, instead emphasizing its accelerating vaccine program. And Australia has fallen somewhere in the middle.

All three countries got through the first year of the pandemic in relatively good shape but are now taking diverging paths in dealing with outbreaks of the delta variant, the highly contagious form that has contributed to a growing sense that the coronavirus cannot be stamped out, just managed.

Professor Michael Baker, an epidemiologist at New Zealand’s University of Otago, said countries around the world are struggling to adapt to the latest threat: “With the delta variant, the old rules just don’t work.”

More

https://apnews.com/article/health-coronavirus-pandemic-b85fc82e35f50fbe0bb8283f45a30de0

Vietnam calls on army for food delivery ahead of lockdown

August 21, 2021

HANOI, Vietnam (AP) — Vietnam’s government said it is sending troops to Ho Chi Minh City to help deliver food and aid to households as it further tightens restrictions on people’s movements amid a worsening surge of the coronavirus.

The army personnel will be deployed to help with logistics as the city of 10 million people asks residents to “stay put” for two weeks starting from Monday, a report on the government website said Friday.

The move comes as Vietnam, which weathered much the pandemic with very few cases, recorded more than 10,000 new infections and 390 deaths on Friday. Ho Chi Minh City accounted for 3,500 of those infections.

“People must absolutely stay put, isolate from each other, from house to house, from community to community,” Prime Minsiter Pham Minh Chinh said during a meeting Friday with southern provinces hit by the outbreak.

The prime minster also called on migrant workers to stay in the city to avoid spreading the virus as they flee before further restrictions on movement come into effect.

Ho Chi Minh City has had strict coronavirus measures in place since June, including banning gatherings of more than two people in public and only allowing people to leave home for essential matters like buying food or going to work in certain permitted businesses. Under the new measures, people in high risk areas cannot leave home at all.

The city has set up over a dozen of temporary hospitals to treat COVID-19 patients, but the high number of active cases means thousands of patients are not able to be hospitalized. According to the Health Ministry, some 19,000 patients with mild symptoms have been asked to stay at home using medical assistant from teams of mobile doctors in their communities.

In Hanoi, the capital, authorities on Friday extended the virus containment measures for another two weeks. People there are required to stay at home and are allowed to go shop for food three times a week using allocated coupons.

Vietnam managed to keep the infection rate relatively low up until April and until then had only recorded 35 deaths. Since August, it has reported average of more than 300 deaths daily.

https://apnews.com/article/health-coronavirus-pandemic-vietnam-a87aa6bc5ead341fd19a97390d6d9009

Full approval for Pfizer Covid vaccine could come from FDA on Monday, report says

Published Fri, Aug 20 2021 5:48 PM EDT Updated Fri, Aug 20 2021 7:03 PM EDT

The Food and Drug Administration is working to approve the Pfizer-BioNTech Covid-19 vaccine on Monday, The New York Times reported, citing sources.

The review process could move past that date, the Times said, as paperwork and negotiations with the company continue.

The move would make it the first Covid vaccine to go from emergency use authorization to full FDA approval.

The FDA declined to comment on the Times report to CNBC.

White House chief medical advisor Dr. Anthony Fauci told the Associated Press on Aug. 8 that he hoped vaccines would start receiving full approval “within the month of August,” adding that full approval would lead more companies and schools to mandate vaccines.

U.S. companies have tightened vaccine rules for employees as Covid cases have spiked across the country in recent weeks, and some cited full approval from the FDA as part of the decision-making process.

Full approval could also help persuade people who are hesitant about getting vaccinated until the FDA fully signs off on the shot.

----If formally authorized, Pfizer and BioNTech’s vaccine would remain available on the market after the pandemic ends, and the companies would be able to advertise the vaccine directly to consumers. Pharmaceutical manufacturers with an EUA are prohibited from promoting their vaccines, CNBC previously reported.

More

https://www.cnbc.com/2021/08/20/full-approval-for-pfizer-covid-vaccine-could-come-from-fda-monday-report-says.html

Next, some vaccine links kindly sent along from a LIR reader in Canada. The links come from a most informative update from Stanford Hospital in California.

World Health Organization - Landscape of COVID-19 candidate vaccineshttps://www.who.int/publications/m/item/draft-landscape-of-covid-19-candidate-vaccines

NY Times Coronavirus Vaccine Trackerhttps://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/science/coronavirus-vaccine-tracker.html

Stanford Websitehttps://racetoacure.stanford.edu/clinical-trials/132

Regulatory Focus COVID-19 vaccine trackerhttps://www.raps.org/news-and-articles/news-articles/2020/3/covid-19-vaccine-tracker

Some other useful Covid links.

Johns Hopkins Coronavirus resource centre

https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/map.html

Rt Covid-19

https://rt.live/

Centers for Disease Control Coronavirus

https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/index.html

The Spectator Covid-19 data tracker (UK)

https://data.spectator.co.uk/city/national

'Emergencies' have always been the pretext on which the safeguards of individual liberty have been eroded.

Friedrich August von Hayek.

 

Technology Update.

With events happening fast in the development of solar power and graphene, I’ve added this section. Updates as they get reported.

Home-grown semiconductors for faster, smaller electronics

‘Growing’ electronic components directly onto a semiconductor block avoids messy, noisy oxidation scattering

Date: August 19, 2021

Source: ARC Centre of Excellence in Future Low-Energy Electronics Technologies

Summary: 'Growing' electronic components directly onto a semiconductor block avoids messy, noisy oxidation scattering that slows and impedes electronic operation. A new study shows that the resulting high-mobility components are ideal candidates for high-frequency, ultra-small electronic devices, quantum dots, and for qubit applications in quantum computing.

'Growing' electronic components directly onto a semiconductor block avoids messy, noisy oxidation scattering that slows and impedes electronic operation.

A UNSW study out this month shows that the resulting high-mobility components are ideal candidates for high-frequency, ultra-small electronic devices, quantum dots, and for qubit applications in quantum computing.

Smaller Means Faster, but Also Noisier

Making computers faster requires ever-smaller transistors, with these electronic components now only a handful of nanometres in size. (There are around 12 billion transistors in the postage-stamp sized central chip of modern smartphones.)

However, in even smaller devices, the channel that the electrons flow through has to be very close to the interface between the semiconductor and the metallic gate used to turn the transistor on and off. Unavoidable surface oxidation and other surface contaminants cause unwanted scattering of electrons flowing through the channel, and also lead to instabilities and noise that are particularly problematic for quantum devices.

"In the new work we create transistors in which an ultra-thin metal gate is grown as part of the semiconductor crystal, preventing problems associated with oxidation of the semiconductor surface," says lead author Yonatan Ashlea Alava.

"We have demonstrated that this new design dramatically reduces unwanted effects from surface imperfections, and show that nanoscale quantum point contacts exhibit significantly lower noise than devices fabricated using conventional approaches," says Yonatan, who is a FLEET PhD student.

"This new all single-crystal design will be ideal for making ultra-small electronic devices, quantum dots, and for qubit applications," comments group leader Prof Alex Hamilton at UNSW.

More

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2021/08/210819102755.htm?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+sciencedaily%2Fmatter_energy%2Fgraphene+%28Graphene+News+--+ScienceDaily%29

If a government resorts to inflation, that is, creates money in order to cover its budget deficits or expands credit in order to stimulate business, then no power on earth, no gimmick, device, trick or even indexation can prevent its economic consequences.

Henry Hazlitt.

 

No comments:

Post a Comment