The world is depended upon the technological development for its ease. Day by day, the technology is improving at a rapid phase. But these technologies do not come in low cost. They require good minds and great costs. One such great invention made recently is that the scientists at The University of Texas at Austin have confirmed that the computers and other electronic devices can be made much faster than now through the implement of graphene on copper.
Rod Ruoff, a Professor and physical chemist claimed that the Graphene will lead to a faster computers that uses the power consumption relatively at very lower level and also to other sorts of the devices relating for communications especially VHF( Very High Frequency ) devices. Graphene can also be used as optically transparent and electrically conductive films for image display technology and also employed in the Power Generation using Photovoltaic cells.
The physical feature of the Graphene is nothing but an atom thick layer of the carbon atoms bonded together in the hexagon arrangement. Graphene holds greater strength for the nano type of electronics, which include analog, logic and memory. Capacitors are used to store charges in the electrical engineering, where this grapheme also lends hand for the super capacitors and batteries for managing the heat and also used as a sensing material for very high pressure sensors especially in the composites. The synthesizing of the graphene on the silicon wafers is a very critical need with the methods which are very compatible with the amount of the Semiconductor industrial processes which are carried out in today’s technological methods.
Graphene is characterized by very high electron and hole mobility which as a result, the speed at which the switching of nano-electronic devices is very high. The physical appearance of the graphene is just like a silicon wafer and thus it is more compatible with the wafer processing approaches of the semiconductor industry. Graphene is also used as a sensitive pressure sensor and as a detector for chemical or biological molecules or cells. Graphene is also used in the nano electromechanical systems as a membrane material due to its excellent mechanical properties.
This research at the University of Texas at Austin is funded by the following organizations/research institutes:
(1) State of Texas
(2) South West Academy for Nanoelectronics (SWAN)
(3) DARPA CERA center.
The graphene can be grown on the copper foils through the usage of chemical vapor deposition from a mixture of methane and hydrogen says the scientist, Ruoff. It is also noted that the rate at which the copper soluble is very low and the ability to achieve large grain size in the polycrystalline copper substrate are appealing factors for its use as a substrate.
“By using a variety of characterization methods, we were able to conclude that the growth on copper shows a significant promise as a potential path for high quality grapheme on 300 – millimeter silicon wafer”, says Ruoff, man behind this technology.
The researchers’ team includes post – doctoral fellow Xuesong Li and Luigi Colombo, a TI fellow from Texas Instruments, Inc., grew grapheme on copper foils whose area is limited only by the furnace used. The researchers demonstrated with a single layer of graphene with a small percentage of being bi layer. Then they went for a dual-gated field effect transistors with the top gate electrically isolated from graphene by thin layer of alumina in order to determine carrier mobility. The Devices showed that the mobility rate is very high and thus proving to be a better technology for faster computer and electronic devices.
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