10-09 :: September 2010

nanotimes News in Brief

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graphene nanoribbon (left); graphene transistors (top), © Walt de Heer research group / Gatech

“Using this approach, we can make very narrow ribbons of interconnected graphene without the rough edges.”

Walt de Heer, Georgia Tech School of Physics

electronics is to make the device leads and the semi- conducting ribbons from the same material. That‘s important to avoid electrical resistance that builds up at junctions between different materials.”

After formation of the nanoribbons – which can be as narrow as 40nm – the researchers apply a dielectric material and metal gate to construct field-effect tran- sistors. While successful fabrication of high-quality

transistors demonstrates graphene‘s viability as an electronic material, de Heer sees them as only the first step in what could be done with the material.

“When we manage to make devices well on the na- noscale, we can then move on to make much smaller and finer structures that will go beyond conventional transistors to open up the possibility for more sophi- sticated devices that use electrons more like light than particles,” he said. “If we can factor quantum mechanical features into electronics, that is going to open up a lot of new possibilities.”

M. Sprinkle, M. Ruan, Y. Hu, J. Hankinson, M. Rubio-Roy, B. Zhang, X. Wu, C. Berger, W. A. de Heer: Scalable tem- plated growth of graphene nanoribbons on SiC, In: Nature Nanotechnology, Vol. 5(2010), No. 10, October 2010, Pages 727-731, DOI:10.1038/nnano.2010.192: http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/nnano.2010.192