A Tug Turns Graphene into a Semiconductor

According to an international science group, the now-renowned carbon compound known as graphene can be turned into a highly efficient semiconductor material through a simple tug. The experts, from the University of Manchester, in the United Kingdom, the Institute of Materials Science, in Madrid, Spain, and the University of Nijmegen, in the Netherlands, say that this simple procedure could lead to an explosive increase of graphene's use in the electronics industry in the near future. Details of the find are published in the latest issue of the Letters section in the top scientific journal Nature Physics.

In spite of the many amazing things graphene has been used for until now, the electronics industry has been kept at bay by the fact that the material's energy spectrum has had no “gap.” This is an essential property for the silicon and other chemicals that are used in the industry at this point. As a result, the carbon compound has been used to make smaller and faster transistors, which experts envision using in future computers that will be considerably faster than existing ones, PhysOrg reports.

Another problem associated with graphene transistors is the fact that they leak energy even when in their idle states. This has prevented manufacturers from including the material in their densely packed computer processors, which feature millions of transistors per square centimeter. “Strain engineering in graphene can effectively lead to new derivatives that offer better or different properties with respect to the parent material. This ‘tuneability’ is a unique to graphene. Having this crystal structure that it is both stretchable and of the highest electronic quality invites one to think of using this combination,” UM Manchester Center for Mesoscience and Nanotechnology Director, Professor Andre Geim says.

“The influence of strain on the electronic properties is a completely unexplored avenue with a lot of promise. It is such an elegant idea, and I am really excited about the prospects. No one could possibly expect that the effect could be so strong and potentially useful,” National University of Singapore and Boston University Physics Professor Antonio Castro Neto adds. The team members share that, when the graphene is stretched, more interesting consequences emerge, including modifications in the quantum Hall effect. Details are published in the paper entitled “Energy gaps and a zero-field quantum Hall effect in graphene by strain engineering.”