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Graphene: Reversible Method of Magnetic Doping Paves Way For Semiconductor Use
concertina226 writes: A team of physicists at University of California, Riverside have discovered how to induce magnetism in graphene in a way that still preserves the material's electronic properties, which paves the way for graphene to be used as a semiconductor.
The researchers grew a sheet of yttrium iron garnet using laser molecular beam epitaxy in a laboratory (abstract). Magnetic substances like iron are known to disrupt graphene's electrical conduction properties, but yttrium iron garnet works well as it is an electric insulator.
When a graphene sheet was placed on top of an atomically smooth sheet of yttrium iron garnet, the graphene borrowed the magnetic properties from the yttrium iron garnet and became magnetized without the need for doping.
The researchers grew a sheet of yttrium iron garnet using laser molecular beam epitaxy in a laboratory (abstract). Magnetic substances like iron are known to disrupt graphene's electrical conduction properties, but yttrium iron garnet works well as it is an electric insulator.
When a graphene sheet was placed on top of an atomically smooth sheet of yttrium iron garnet, the graphene borrowed the magnetic properties from the yttrium iron garnet and became magnetized without the need for doping.
Graphene. Just say "no" to drugs?
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
Graphene might be used in semiconductor devices whether magnetized or not; being able to magnetize it opens possibilities of making some types of devices but in no way is a prerequisite for practical applications of graphene in computers, semiconductors, etc.
Will be paved with pencil leads
With all these attributes Graphene could maybe be applied to warfare as a payload. Once inhaled, some kind of detection scheme to track or detect the targets that were in the vicinity. Just put in a little graphene if you want to mark them for future surveillance, put in a shitload if you want them to inhale a bunch more...that would probably work faster than asbestos especially if it were possible to manipulate the structure to make particles ever more wickedly shaped. Like little shurikens or caltrops. Okay maybe not. But you could call that missile the Shinobi-1, that's all.
Until we have a way to mass produce the stuff, all this research is fine and well but you won't be seeing it in products anytime soon. Not saying the research is pointless, just that people shouldn't get too excited about the applications just yet. There are some more fundamental issues that need to be resolved first.
If you can't beat them, embrace and extend them.
I'm sure it's commercially viable, easy and cheap to do. We'll see this in real world applications in about 2 years if all goes well.
NOT!
But good luck with it. This is the kind of breakthrough that may one day lead to viable quantum computers, teleportation, and other things that are relegated to the SyFy channel for now.
It's fine to make graphene do all these goodies. We still have to find a way to manufacture it more efficiently... other than getting a lot of pencils and scotch tape :D
The debt will be forgiven.
Hey eggheads, shit or get off the pot already. I'm tired of reading of "what might happen in the future"... just do it for fucks sakes.
Buck Feta. You know what to do.
Early laser development: a solution in search of applications
Early graphene development: A plethora of applications for a substance we still can't manufacture.
So, if we take a ridiculously difficult thing to produce in quantity (graphene) and mix it with a difficult to find rare Earth metal (yttrium) we can do something we can already do with abundant, easy to produce compounds. Good work professor! Now, how is that at all helpful or even worth knowing?
That's pretty awesome.
and it becomes