A substrate is a material or layer upon which other materials or processes are performed, used in agriculture, microchip manufacturing, medicine, geology, and more. The silicon substrate is complex, with multiple layers, and research is being done to create three-dimensional microchips. Enzyme substrates are natural three-dimensional shapes, and geological processes use substrates to determine age and composition. Soil substrates are analyzed for crop growth.
A substrate is an underlying material or layer of material upon which other materials or processes are performed. It can involve anything from the subsoil surfaces in agriculture on which plants are grown to layers of silicon semiconductor used as the basis for building electrical circuits and cells or other biological media upon which enzymes act. The term substrate is often used in medicine and microchip manufacturing, but is also common to geology and other natural processes.
The silicon substrate is, without a doubt, one of the most complex synthetic structures made on the micrometer and nanometer scale. Microchip and solar cell designs use multiple horizontal layers, with a typical microchip as of 2011 having several functional substrates or bases for layers on top of them. The semiconductor material begins with a device layer of the transistor, which is topped with an interconnect layer to a device layer on top of it. Between these sections substrate layers of both insulation and metallization are added, as well as bonding layers to keep the whole structure together and functional. Research into interconnected horizontal and vertical layers, making a three-dimensional cube-shaped microchip, is the next step in increasing memory and processing speed.
In contrast to the production of circuits, an enzyme substrate is already a natural three-dimensional shape. Enzymes are protein molecules that act as catalysts in biochemistry. Nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide (NADH) is an example of a coenzyme of vitamin B3, which binds to a cell substrate in the human body. The site of the active substrate where it binds is then altered by the enzyme and this section of the substrate is released as a product of the reaction. Since the enzyme itself is not changed in the process, it then travels to other places to continue enabling essential reactions, such as cellular respiration and energy production in the body.
Geological processes also often refer to substrates as a method for determining the age and composition of the earth’s crust. The lower layers of rock deposits, often referred to as strata, are considered to be older and often contain the earliest fossilized examples of life on Earth, if they were deposited horizontally and were not overturned by climatic effects. Similar research examining the deep layers of ice sheets in Antarctica is used to determine the composition of the atmosphere in the distant past via gases trapped in ice substrates, as well as ice age periods in the history of Earth’s climate. Related processes are used in analyzing the top 6 centimeters of soil substrates for nutrients, water retention, trapped air, etc. to determine soil fertility for optimal crop growth.
Protect your devices with Threat Protection by NordVPN
