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New Graphene Research Promises Reliable Chip-Level Production
An anonymous reader writes "A research team from the University of Texas and a German nanotechnology company have published a paper which describes a major milestone for the future of graphene-based computing – the reliable production of wafer-scale graphene measuring between 100 and 300mm, suitable at last for integration with 'traditional' materials in computing. The research team was able to manufacture 25,000 graphene field-effect transistors from lab-produced graphene film on a polycrystalline copper base. Team research leader Deji Akinwande said: 'Our process is based on the scalable concept of growing graphene on copper-coated silicon substrates...Once we had developed a suitable method for growing high-quality graphene with negligible numbers of defects in small sample sizes, it was relatively straightforward for us to scale up.'"(Original, paywalled paper is at ACS Nano.)
No bandgap unless you are really doctoring the graphene with other materials
Bilayer graphene has a bandgap, and the bandgap can be tuned by applying a voltage, applying strain, etc. Graphene is not a drop in replacement for silicon, and a lot of work needs to be done before it shows up in commercial products. But it has some very interesting properties, and may eventually replace most silicon electronics.
Not sure how transistors that can't be turned off will help in cooling data centers
Well, I don't know about "cooling data centers", but it should result in cooler semiconductors. Graphene conducts heat better than silicon, and if it is built on a copper substrate, with just a few carbon atoms separating the heat generation from the copper, it should be much easier to dissipate heat. That means it can either run cooler, or run much faster.