Graphene: the future after Silicon

Graphene is a highly conductive substance whose atoms are arranged in a mesh-like form a single atom thick. This substance was discovered to be present in ordinary graphite in 2003.

What’s so special with Graphene?

Graphene has greater electron mobility and more efficient heat dissipation than silicon. Because of these and other attributes, graphene may some day replace silicon as the semiconductor material in microchips and enable the continuation of Moore’s Law.

In other words, Graphene can be used as flexible and stretchable transparent electrodes in the future.

Graphene membrane

 

Research results from University of Maryland physicists show that graphene, a new material that combines aspects of semiconductors and metals, could be a leading candidate to replace silicon in applications ranging from high-speed computer chips to biochemical sensors.

The research, funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF) and published online in the journal Nature Nanotechnolgy, reveals that graphene conducts electricity at room temperature with less intrinsic resistance than any other known material.

“Graphene is one of the materials being considered as a potential replacement of silicon for future computing” said NSF Program Manager Charles Ying. “The recent results obtained by scientists provide directions to achieve high-electron speed in graphene near room temperature, which is critically important for practical applications.”

Graphene is also a very promising material for chemical and biochemical sensing applications in which an electrical signal from, for instance, a molecule adsorbed on the sensing device, is translated into an electrical signal by changing the conductivity of the device. The low resistivity and extremely thin nature of graphene also holds promise for applications in thin, mechanically tough, electrically conducting transparent films. Such films are sorely needed in a variety of electronics applications, from touch screens to photovoltaic cells.

Understanding the electrical properties of graphene is important because, unlike the other materials used by the electronics industry, it remains stable and conductive down to the molecular scale. As a result, when the current silicon technology reaches it’s a fundamental miniaturization limit in coming years, graphene could very well take its place.

 

Too technical?

Let me show you what GRAPHENE will change the future of the electronics by clicking on the video below (…and sorry about the quality but this video was the only one I found available so far.)

 

Now if you got curious how the scientists got there and have a few more minutes, take a look at this video below… I can tell you that the end is at least very surprising. Thanks for reading (…and watching!) this article!