Could Graphene Replace Semiconductors?
Kim, professor at Columbia University, believes that graphene may be just that material. Along with his colleagues, Bolotin, Sikes, Hone and Stormer, Kim thinks that suspended graphene may provide the transport capability needed to reach greater speeds in computer ships. The work of the group from Columbia University can be found in Physical Review Letters: Temperature-Dependent Transport in Suspended Graphene. When one looks at the structure of graphite, stacked layers of pure carbon are apparent. However, it wasnt until 2004 that a process sophisticated enough to slice off one of the layers was discovered. This single layer is called graphene. Graphene is basically a sheet of bonded carbon atoms, with the thickness of only one atom. If one could look down at graphene from the top, one would observe that the sheet bears a strong resemblance to honeycomb, with its hexagons fitted snugly together. Graphene behaves almost like semiconductor but without a energy gap, Kim explains. This is
