Graphene-Based Electronics: Can This Replace Silicon Microelectronics, Semiconductors?

Finding a material that could replace silicon is a critical task in nanoelectronics. For many years, graphene has appeared promising. However, its potential was compromised along the way because of destructive processing techniques and the absence of a new electronics paradigm to adopt it. The need for the next major nanoelectronics platform is greater than ever, as silicon is almost at its limit in supporting faster computation.

Graphene May Replace Silicon Electronics

As fundamental physical limitations emerge and threaten to obstruct progress, scientists at the Georgia Institute of Technology (Georgia Tech) and the University of Tianjin have made a significant step toward bringing graphene-based electronics out of the lab and into the real world. Graphene is a replacement for silicon in electronics.

The strength of graphene, according to Walter de Heer, a professor at the Georgia Institute of Technology's School of Physics, rests in its flat, two-dimensional structure, which is kept together by the strongest chemical bonds known.

In a Hackster report, de Heer said that graphene could be downsized considerably more than silicon, allowing for much smaller devices that operate at higher speeds and generate much less heat. In theory, this allows for the packing of more devices onto a single chip of graphene than silicon can.

Researchers could create a layer of graphene, etch it using electron beam lithography, and then weld it to silicon carbide using chips manufactured of those materials, producing a useful nanoelectronics device.

The discovery revealed something unexpected: Compared to earlier attempts at graphene electronics, electric charges, which behave like photons in an optical fiber, travel far farther down the graphene edge before dispersing.

According to the team's research, the edge currents are carried by a quasiparticle that, although a single entity, may move without resistance and travel on opposing sides of the graphene edge. This quasiparticle has no charge and no energy. According to the hypothesis, this quasiparticle might be the Majorana fermion, a particle named after scientist Ettore Majorana and suggested in 1937.

Although this moves graphene one step closer to eventually replacing silicon, de Heer estimates in another report that it might take five to ten more years of research to transform what they have created in the lab into a functioning electronics platform.

The team's work has been made publicly available in Nature Communications.

Advantages of Using Graphene in Electronics

The futuristic electronics of the next generation might be made with the help of graphene. The University of Manchester has posted some advantages of using graphene in technology.

Graphene-Based Smartphones, Tablets

Current touch screens for smartphones and tablets can be enhanced with graphene as a covering. It can also be utilized to create modern computers' circuitry, making them tremendously quick. These are only two instances of how graphene might improve current technology. Additionally, graphene can catalyze the development of new electronics.

Wearables

A smartphone that you could wear on your wrist or a tablet that you could fold up like a newspaper are both possible with graphene. Both the mechanical and electrical characteristics of graphene are used to benefit flexible, wearable electronics. Touch screens are made of indium-tin-oxide, which conducts well but is fragile.

Graphene Semiconductors

A global study has been conducted on graphene's potential uses as a semiconductor due to its special characteristics of thinness and conductivity. Graphene semiconductors, which are only one atom thick and can carry electricity at ambient temperature, may eventually replace current computer chip technology. According to research, graphene circuits are already significantly quicker than current silicon-based ones.

Other Graphene-Based Items

University of Manchester researchers have produced the world's tiniest transistor using graphene. The performance of transistors in circuits improves with decreasing transistor size. The continued miniaturization of technology will be the main obstacle the electronics industry must overcome in the ensuing 20 years.

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