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Breakthrough Grows Graphene On Silicon Substrate

Posted by ScuttleMonkey on from the graphene-farmers-unite dept.

eldavojohn writes "A new paper entitled Epitaxial Graphene on Silicon toward Graphene-Silicon Fusion Electronics published by a group of physicists at Tohoku University in Japan has demonstrated that they can grow graphene on a silicon substrate and pair that technique with conventional lithography to create a graphene-on-silicon field effect transistor. For quite sometime we've been discussing the supermaterial graphene being used like silicon improving everything from memory density to transistors. Given this demonstration, are we witnessing the start of a new era in electronics or are there more hurdles to clear before the manufacturers adopt this fabrication process and embrace graphene?"

11 of 60 comments (clear)

  1. Super! by hey! · · Score: 3, Funny

    "Breakthrough Grows Graphene On Silicon Substrate"? I'm calling everyone I know with the news. In fact, I'm writing my congressman to demand a new three day holiday: "National Graphene On Silicon Substrate Day".

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    Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
    1. Re:Super! by hey! · · Score: 3, Funny

      I've been trying to write a poem about the authors of this paper, but I'm having trouble with the scansion.

      "GRAPHene on SILicon SUBstrate" is trochaic triameter, and lends itself to the ballad quatrain, e.g.

      Has ever there been a more wonderful thing,
      than graphene on silicon substrate?
      I'll bet Hyun-Chul Kang doesn't mind it a bit,
      that in college he wasn't a "fun date".

      I've had to drop several of the original 11 authors (HIroKAzu FUkiDOme, RYOta TAkaHASHi, and AKiTASHi YUshiGOe) whose names take up an entire quadrameter line and are hard to rhyme.

      --
      Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
  2. Not so great by silverpig · · Score: 5, Informative

    This isn't a huge breakthrough. First, their dirac peaks, while graphene-like, look horrible. This means the quality of graphene they are dealing with is very low. In fact, they don't thermally decompose all of the SiC, so they're still not much different than the SiC decomposition method. Something like this method holds much more promise. CVD growth of graphene on a copper substrate and subsequent rapid etching of the copper yields HUGE 30+" sheets of single to tri-layer graphene films.

    1. Re:Not so great by BrandonBlizard · · Score: 4, Funny

      That post was so confusing, it must be really well thought out and informative.

  3. What's the strength of Graphene? by wisebabo · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I mean isn't graphene basically unrolled carbon nano-tubes? And aren't carbon nano-tubes supposed to be very very (tensile) strong, strong enough to be considered to be usable as the raw material for a practical space elevator?

    If (as another poster claims) 30+" sheets of the stuff can be made, could this stuff (even if slightly impure and not good enough for nano-electronics) be very useful for ultra-lightweight armor, fuel tanks (for a single stage to orbit vehicle), bikeframes... even a space elevator? Or is the fact that it is only a 2D mesh of carbon atoms (as opposed to a 3D "lattice" like diamond) make it substantially weaker?

    I read somewhere that a layer of graphene a single atom thick is able to hold back 1 atm. of pressure. Isn't that roughly equivalent to a tissue paper holding back the ocean at some very deep depth (I know this is very imprecise! :)

    1. Re:What's the strength of Graphene? by silverpig · · Score: 4, Informative

      Sort of. Actually, it's probably more accurate to say that nanotubes are rolled-up graphene. And yes, graphene is extremely strong. I've seen sheets of it cantilevered out over tens of microns. This is roughly equivalent to taking a sheet of normal paper, holding it in your hands, and having it stick out for well over a football field away from you, perfectly rigid. As strong as it is per unit thickness it is extremely thin (0.34 nm is the number usually quoted), so the total strength isn't useful for armor. After all, graphite is just this stuff layered up millions of times. The 2D mesh is what makes it stronger than diamond because the sp2 bonds are stronger than the sp3 bonds in diamond are.

    2. Re:What's the strength of Graphene? by silverpig · · Score: 4, Interesting

      It's basically due to the fact you outlined: While the carbon atoms in each sheet are bonded to each other very well, the bonding between sheets is very weak. I suppose you could make "pure" graphite (although pure is not the right word), and have perfect sheets stacked on each other to make a piece of graphite similar to a phonebook, however normal graphite has little flakes of graphene all stuck together somewhat haphazardly. In terms of thickness, sure it's as you say (roughly), that you can double the strength by doubling the layers but just because something has a good tensile strength doesn't mean it is ideal for armor. I am not an armor expert by any means so I'll not comment further. Besides, there are cooler things to do with graphene than make armor :) Well my graphene researching days are over now, but I keep an eye on things due to personal interest.

  4. 2006 called... by Goldsmith · · Score: 4, Informative

    Oh hey, 2006 called, and they want their science back.

    This field moves *fast* and the epitaxial technique is already being commercialized by IBM (perhaps others too, but IBM isn't hiding it). It's already moving out of science and into manufacturing (for what purpose, I'm not sure anyone knows). Meanwhile, cheaper and larger scale methods to grow graphene have been invented, and are nearly perfected.

    1. Re:2006 called... by the+Atomic+Rabbit · · Score: 4, Informative

      The difference between the 2006 work and this one is that the present researchers are not growing graphene on a silicon carbide substrate, but on a silicon substrate with a silicon carbide thin film on top. This may make it a little more commercially feasible.

      However, the trouble with the epitaxial technique is that no one (AFAIK) has successfully demonstrated a quantum Hall effect in these graphene sheets, unlike the sheets made using the usual "scotch tape" methods. So there's some doubt about whether what they are getting is really graphene. I don't think the present work addresses this problem either.

  5. Re:Self-replicating computers by Dunbal · · Score: 3, Funny

    Robots don't want meat, arable land, pure water, etc, etc (or, at least, I hope they won't)

          Oh god, I hope they don't want to round up the humans and get us to do the work for them, so that they can lounge around all day and drink beer!

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  6. Re:Self-replicating computers by JamesP · · Score: 3, Funny

    But they will want power, and metal "maybe".

    Well, ok the robots can have Manowar then...

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