
Graphene Transistors: "one atom thick" - r7000
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/7352464.stm
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kurtosis
Graphene is an amazing material but I think it suffers from the same problems
as nanotube electronics - it's very hard to get the nanotubes to be positioned
where you want them and connected in the topology that you wish. Geim's group
has in the past used "exfoliated" graphene (basically the graphene is just
peeled off with a bulk sample with scotch tape) And made some amazing
discoveries that connect solid state physics to relativistic quantum field
theory because of graphene's unique band structure. But for making electronic
devices where you would want to pattern ~10^6 transistors, the exfoliation
process is very hard to control and seems unlikely to scale well. When someone
can produce a graphene sample the size of IC die call me. Still it does seem
to have a lot of theoretical advantages over silicon, GaAs et. al. (especially
the possibility of ballistic conduction)

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vsingh
This is neat stuff. Coincidentally, I just submitted my undergraduate thesis
today, on the topic of carbon nanotube transistors. Our devices use multi-
walled nanotubes, which are ~50nm in diameter. These things look to be an
order of magnitude smaller than that.

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sdurkin
Why are mainstream press science articles always so sensationalist?

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pmjordan
Presumably because they mostly get the information first-hand and maybe people
close to that source. Of course the people who have spent the last 5 years of
their lives working on this stuff will hope that it is a major breakthrough.
Plus, journalists seem to have a habit of intepreting tentative predictions as
fact.

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Panoramix
Will hope that it is a major breakthrough, or will say it is a major
breakthrough in order to get more funding. One problem is that in science
there are (for the most part) no major breakthroughs, but a lot of very small
breakthroughs which when put together make up a major one. But journalists are
not interested in that, they just want to report the apple falling on Newton's
head - which is not accurate most of the time.

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domnit
This looks very interesting. I'm far from knowledgeable in this area, but I'd
think radiation-created transient errors would be a serious problem with
something this small.

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choward93
So does this make Manchester the "Graphene Valley?"

