A discovery that could change computing and electronics forever: a graphene semiconductor for a new electronics

Known for being strong, flexible, and lightweight, graphene can now add a new string to its bow. Scientists have used it to create a first functional semiconductor that could revolutionize electronics and computing.

Silicon is the king of electronics. It's found in all our devices. But it is gradually reaching its limits. It is difficult, relying only on it, to continue to imagine ever faster computers and even smaller electronic devices. And that's where physicists have long hoped to bring in the one they have taken to calling the "miracle material": graphene.

Remember that graphene is a two-dimensional material. Understand that it is composed of only a single layer of strongly bonded carbon atoms, which gives it a number of interesting properties. It is, for example, extremely strong while remaining very light. It is also a much better conductor of electricity than copper. However, graphene does not have a band gap, a property that is nevertheless crucial that allows semiconductors to turn our transistors on and off.

And it finally took a dozen years for researchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology (United States) to succeed in producing a semiconductor based on graphene. Furthermore, fully compatible with conventional microelectronics processing methods, which is essential for the potential alternative to silicon that they describe in detail in the journal Nature.

"Graphene has properties that we hoped to bring to electronics," said Walter de Heer, a physicist at Georgia Tech, in a statement. "It is robust, much more miniaturizable than silicon, capable of supporting very high currents, and this without heating up or collapsing. Graphene gives us access to properties of electrons that are simply not accessible with silicon."

To achieve this, the physicists grew their graphene on slices of silicon carbide using special ovens. They thus produced epitaxial graphene or epigraphene. A single layer of graphene that develops on a crystalline face of silicon carbide. The team discovered that when it is manufactured properly, this epitaxial graphene chemically binds to silicon carbide - understand that graphene gives electrons to the system - and shows semiconducting properties.

In the graphene-based semiconductor, electrons encounter very little resistance. The researchers speak of mobility ten times higher than that of silicon. Enough to consider much higher computing speeds. Without creating unwanted heat, explains futura-science.com.

The researchers also reveal that the electrical charges they observed, like photons in an optical fiber, can travel long distances without dispersing. In the new device, electrons appear to exhibit wave properties of quantum mechanics accessible in devices, especially at very low temperatures. They could thus help to overcome the many challenges associated with the creation of quantum computers.