Today’s Popular Posts
- .
Popular Posts
- ,
Tag Archives: graphene
Plasmonic nanostructures make graphene viable for super-fast communications
On the one hand graphene, a single layer of carbon atoms in a honeycomb pattern, can move electrons (electricity) very fast and efficiently. On the other hand graphene is lousy at absorbing energy, specifically from sunlight; only about 3% is absorbed. Sounds like graphene, a wonder material in many accounts, isn’t cut out for solar [...]
Posted in News: Photonics Also tagged Geim, nanowire, Novoselov, optoelectronics, photonics, plasmonic nanostructure 1 Comment
Graphene ICs: IBM builds graphene transistors into a circuit
About one week before IBM celebrated its 100th year, IBM researchers published in the journal Science [10 June 2011, paywalled, Wafer-Scale Graphene Integrated Circuit] and publicly announced the design of a high speed graphene circuit. Since there are announcements about this or that new application of graphene just about every week, it would be easy [...]
Posted in Impact: Computer Power Also tagged FET, IBM, IC, integrated circuit, Nobel, silicon replacement, transistor, Watson Research Center Leave a comment
Graphene transistor: Two layers may be better than one
One of the characteristics of clever science is to look at a new material from every which way. So it is with graphene. Graphene is a sheet of carbon atoms, in a layer one atom thick, arranged in the pattern of a honeycomb. It sounds simple, and is anything but. Its super-thinness in this precise [...]
Posted in News: Nanotechnology Also tagged band gap, bandgap, bilayer, electronics, graphene transistor, NIST, semiconductor, silicon Leave a comment
Graphene gets spintronics
The basis of microelectronics is the manipulation of charged electrons. The basis of spintronics is the conversion of electricity to magnetism and vice versa in order to manipulate the spin of electrons. Both approaches can produce transistors and other elements used in electronics (computers et al), but spintronics has advantages: Unlike the charge of electrons, [...]
Posted in News: Nanotechnology Also tagged carbon, Dirac point, Geim, magnetic, Novoselov, spintronics Leave a comment
Graphene spintronics: Studies show promise
If you’ve had any contact with the concept of ‘digital devices’ (as in theory of, not the use of) you’ve heard it explained like ‘switches’ (i.e. gates) that are either ON or OFF, zeroes or ones – the binary code – that sort of thing. Information is stored or processed based on a sequence of [...]
Posted in News: Nanotechnology Also tagged digital computing, graphite, nanotechnology, nanotube, quantum mechanics, semiconductor, spintronics Leave a comment
Another graphene application – supercapacitors
While everybody knows about batteries, supercapacitors seem like a well kept secret. The reason is fairly simple. While capacitors have been used for a long time in electronics, capacitors and their souped-up cousins, supercapacitors, have only recently become candidates for competing with the common rechargeable battery. Supercapacitors store electricity as batteries do, but there are [...]
Posted in News: Energy Storage Also tagged battery, energy storage, lithium-ion, Nanotek Instruments, supercapacitor Leave a comment
Working toward a ‘triple threat’ graphene transistor
Anyone paying attention to science or technology this year must have noticed that graphene is a big deal. As in two guys, Andre Geim and Konstantin Novoselov, both at the University of Manchester (UK), winning a Nobel Prize in physics for (more or less) launching graphene on its way to fame and fortune. Hardly a [...]
Posted in Impact: Nanotechnology Also tagged amplifier, Geim, n-type, Nobel Prize, Novoselov, p-type, transistor, triple-mode, trisistor Leave a comment
Graphene finds mass appeal
Thanks to the 2010 Nobel Prize for physics, graphene is a hot topic. That doesn’t mean it’s a household word. Graphene is not like pencil lead, which most people know is graphite. (That may hold for another generation or two, pencils are disappearing into tiny niches.) Yet graphene is graphite. Same stuff, pure carbon, just [...]
Posted in Impact: Nanotechnology Also tagged carbon, Dirac equation, mass, massless, mathematics, nanotube, physics, quantum physics Leave a comment
Graphene oxide memristors combine cheap and flexible
In electronics graphene is quickly becoming the great hope for replacing and improving upon silicon semiconductors. Since silicon semiconductors are the basis of much commercial electronics (especially computing), we’re talking the Big Time here. This attracts a lot of research money, which in turn attracts researchers to probe opportunities in a number of directions. One [...]
Posted in News: Nanotechnology Also tagged electronics, graphene oxide, graphite, HP, memristor, semiconductor, transistor Leave a comment
Nobels for trend setting: Graphene and IVF
Nobel Prizes are sometimes perfunctory – lifetime achievement, arcane fields. Not this year. The Nobel committees seem to have their brains operating with a vision; they’re seeing a larger context and signaling their awareness. This year’s Nobel Prize for Medicine and Physiology went to Robert Edwards the founding father of in-vitro fertilization (IVF). This is [...]
Posted in Impact: Nanotechnology Also tagged Edwards, fertilization, Geim, in vitro, IVF, medicine, nanotechnology, natal biology, Nobel, Novoselov, physics, Scotch tape Leave a comment
Graphene: Diverse advances
Scientists thought they understood carbon, until nanotechnology came along. Working with carbon at the atomic level (the nanoscale) has revealed many surprising properties. In particular, graphene, a sheet of carbon one atom thick with the atoms arranged in a lattice of hexagons like a honeycomb, has proven to be astonishingly versatile. For example, two recent [...]
Posted in News: Nanotechnology Also tagged DNA, electronics, electrons, nanopore, nucleobases, semiconductor, sequencing, transistor Leave a comment
Stretch graphene, europium titanate – get interesting results
Forgive the pun, but a new way to get unusual behavior from graphene or europium titanate is a stretch. Literally a stretch, as in taking the material (which is produced in sheets) and stretching it. Stretching is a basic physical technique but applied to unusual materials it sometimes produces unexpected results. In this case two [...]
Posted in News: Nanotechnology Also tagged dysprosium scandate, europium titanate, ferroelectric, ferromagnetic, Landau levels, magnetic field, MRI, quantized electrons, strain, stretch Leave a comment
Graphene oxide: Nanotechnology with an eco-friendly end
It isn’t often (like almost never) that a new technology with potential impact on the environment comes with its own natural solution. According to two papers published by scientists from Rice University (Texas, USA), this is the case with graphene oxide. Graphene, a form of carbon, can be simply described as a form of graphite [...]
Posted in Impact: Nanotechnology Also tagged bacteria, carbon, ecology, environment, graphene oxide, green, nanotechnology, Shewanella Leave a comment
Graphene in a communications context
News stories about using graphene in computers appear all the time. Less often, there are stories about graphene used in communications. This will probably change. Graphene is carbon, a specific form of carbon related to graphite (as in the lead of pencils). Graphene is graphite in sheets, very thin sheets precisely one carbon atom thick. [...]
Posted in News: Communications Also tagged communications, electron-hole pairs, fiber-optic, IBM, nanotechnology, photodetector, photon, switching Leave a comment
Progress toward graphene solar cells
Traditionally solar cells are made from either silicon or a ruthenium compound. Unfortunately, ruthenium is relatively rare (a rare Earth element) and will not ‘scale’ to produce the enormous quantities needed for solar energy production. Silicon is what is used now, but silicon is relatively expensive to manufacture correctly. So scientists have been looking for [...]
Posted in News: Alternative Energy Also tagged graphene sheets, nanotechnology, side group, solar cells, solar energy, solvent Leave a comment
Fixing the band gap with graphene nanomesh
A band gap in semiconductor terminology is not the difference between two rock groups. Semiconductors – like the silicon of computer chips – are structured in bands of energy where electrons flow along the bands but may or may not be able to move between bands. Two such bands are the valence band (the highest [...]
Posted in News: Nanotechnology Also tagged bandwidth gap, biosensors, nanomesh, on-off ratio, semiconductor, silicon, spintronics Leave a comment
High volume production for graphene
Graphene is – potentially – the new wonder-nanotech-material for the semiconductor industry (that’s the ‘chip’ business for computers and everything else digital). In the form of a pure carbon sheet with many interesting electrical properties, graphene is an upgrade for the old reliable silicon. [SciTechStory: Big news for nanoscale graphene] However, despite the many research [...]
Posted in News: Nanotechnology Also tagged manufacturing, nanotechnology, semiconductor, silicon Leave a comment
Graphene transistors
Start with the fact that digital computers run on transistors; transistors are key. Next, consider graphene, the nanotechnology cousin of graphite, a versatile material that has hit the news many times in the past several years. Finally, with regard to transistors and computers, graphene has already been dubbed the ‘successor to silicon’; now it looks [...]
Posted in News: Computer Power Also tagged epitaxial layers, IBM, silicon, teraherz, transistor, wafer 3 Comments
Big news for nanoscale graphene
It is literally big news for nanotechnology applications that may use graphene – a European consortium of researchers (UK, Sweden, Italy) has learned how to make bigger pieces. That’s phrased a little too colloquially. Previously samples of graphene, a one atom thick honeycomb of carbon, were laboriously created as tiny flakes fractions of a millimeter [...]
Posted in News: Nanotechnology Also tagged nanotechnology, quantum Hall effect, von Klitzing constant 1 Comment
For the computer industry, one word: Graphene
There’s that all-too famous line from The Graduate, “Just one word… plastics.” Let’s change that to, “Just one word: graphene.” Most people know about plastics. Even at the time of the movie (1967), it was a plausible suggestion for a career, if more than a bit off-target for the Justin Hoffman character. But graphene? Graphene [...]
Tuning for terahertz waves with graphene