The world's first graphene semiconductor, the birth process revealed
Feb 18,2024
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Source: Content observed by the semiconductor industry (ID:icbank) compiled from scitechdaily, thank you.
Scientists at the Georgia Institute of Technology have developed the world's first functional semiconductor made from graphene. Graphene, characterized by a single layer of carbon atoms that can be linked by the strongest bonds, is the basis for this progress. Semiconductors are important materials that allow current to flow under certain conditions and are essential to the operation of electronic devices. The team's breakthrough opens the door to new ways of making electronics.
Their findings are positive for silicon--Almost all modern electronic products are made of materials--It reaches its limits in the face of faster and faster computing and smaller and smaller electronic devices. Professor of Physics, Georgia Institute of TechnologyWalter the LordLed research teams from Atlanta, Georgia, and Tianjin, China, to produce a graphene semiconductor compatible with traditional microelectronics processing methods.--This is a necessary condition for any viable substitute for silicon.
In this latest study, published in the journal Nature, de Hull and his team overcome the biggest obstacle that has plagued graphene research for decades, and the reason many people believe that graphene electronics will never work. It is called“band gap”, is a vital electronic property that allows semiconductors to turn on and off. Until now, graphene had no band gap.
“We now have an extremely robust graphene semiconductor whose mobility is10 times, and also has unique properties that silicon does not have,”The LordSay.“But we used10 The work story for years has been,‘Can we make this material good enough to work?’”
new semiconductor
The Lordbegan to explore carbon-based materials as potential semiconductors early in their careers, and then2001 Year turned to explore two-dimensional graphene. He knew then that graphene had potential in electronics.
“We want to introduce three special properties of graphene into electronics,”He said.“It is an extremely strong material that can handle very large currents without heating up and decomposing.”
De Hull made the breakthrough when he and his team figured out how to grow graphene on silicon carbide wafers using a special furnace. They produced epitaxial graphene, which is a monolayer grown on a silicon carbide crystal face. The team found that when made properly, epitaxial graphene becomes chemically bonded to silicon carbide and begins to exhibit semiconducting properties.
Over the next decade, they continued to refine the material at the Georgia Institute of Technology and later collaborated with colleagues at the Tianjin International Center for Nanoparticles and Nanosystems at Tianjin University in China.The LordIn2014 co-founded the center in.
How they did it
In its natural form, graphene is neither a semiconductor nor a metal, but a semi-metal. A bandgap is a material that can be turned on and off when an electric field is applied, which is how all transistors and silicon electronic devices work. The main problem in graphene electronics research is how to turn it on and off so that it can work like silicon.
But to make a functional transistor, a large number of operations must be performed on the semiconductor material, which may damage its performance. To prove that their platform could function as a viable semiconductor, the team needed to measure its electronic properties without damaging it.
They put atoms on graphene, to the system“Donation”Electronic--A technique called doping is used to see if the material is a good conductor. It works without damaging the material or its properties.
The team's measurements show that the mobility of their graphene semiconductor is silicon's 10 Times. In other words, electrons move with very low resistance, which in electronics means faster calculations.“It's like driving on a gravel road and driving on a highway,”Dehil said.“It is more efficient, does not heat up much, and has a higher speed, so electrons can move faster.”
The team's product is currently the only two-dimensional semiconductor with all the necessary properties for nanoelectronics, and its electrical properties are far superior to any other two-dimensional semiconductor currently under development.
“The long-standing problem in graphene electronics is that graphene does not have a suitable band gap and cannot be turned on and off at the correct ratio,”said the horse.“Over the years, many people have tried various ways to solve this problem. Our technology achieves a band gap and is a key step in realizing graphene-based electronics.”
Forward
Epitaxial graphene may cause a paradigm shift in electronics and allow for entirely new technologies that exploit its unique properties. The material allows the use of the quantum mechanical wave properties of electrons, which is a requirement for quantum computing.
“Our motivation to develop graphene electronics has been around for a long time, and all that's left is to make it happen,”Dehil said.“We have to learn how to handle the material, how to make it better and better, and finally how to measure its performance. It took a very, very long time.”
Mr de Hull said it was not unusual for a new generation of electronics to come out. Before the advent of silicon, there were vacuum tubes, and before that, there were wires and telegraph machines. Silicon is one of the many advances in the history of electronics, and the next step may be graphene.
“To me, this is like a Wright brothers moment,”Dehil said.“They built a plane that could fly through the air300 feet of aircraft. But skeptics questioned why it needed to fly when the world already had high-speed trains and ships, but they stuck with it, the start of a technology that could take people across oceans.”
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