An anonymous reader writes: Graphene, sometimes described as an unrolled carbon nanotube, is a one-atom-thick sheet of bonded carbon atoms with exceptional electronic, thermal and mechanical properties that give it great potential for electronics applications.
This year, graphene has received special attention at the 55th International Electron Device Meeting (IEDM), the world’s premier forum for the presentation of applied research in microelectronic, nanoelectronic and bioelectronic devices., held at the Hilton Baltimore on December 7-9, 2009.
The IEDM's Emerging Technologies session has featured a series of invited talks from leading experts on graphene nanoelectronics, including progress in how to integrate graphene into field-effect transistors, interconnects and other IC applications; graphene-based heterojunction devices that exhibit full quantum transport; spin transport valves that may lead to spintronics-based graphene devices; and nano-electro-mechanical devices.
Prof. Yuji Awano, from Keio University, has shown the prominence of graphene as an emerging research material both for front-end devices such as transistors, and back-end devices, such as interconnects. Dr Awano, who was previously with Fujitsu, has shown the recent progress of material technologies in industrial and academic research centers in Japan.
Dr Yu-Ming Lin from IBM has shown the realization of graphene FETs usable in amplifiers up to frequencies as high as 50 GHz, the fastest ever reported. Considering that this impressive performance was achieved with a rather long gate length (350 nm), the work opens up the possibility that graphene one day may replace silicon for MOSFETs in analog electronics.
Prof. Philip Kim, of Columbia University, has reported the fabrication of graphene nanoribbon structures, focusing on the obtained gap inversely proportional to the ribbon width and on the presence and role of edge disorder. Dr Kim has also presented the fabrication of lateral graphene heterojunction devices with a top gate structure.
Prof. Giuseppe Iannaccone, from the University of Pisa, has highlighted the special role of modeling in the early evaluation of different technology options, before actual fabrication challenges have been overcome. Iannaccone has proposed tunnel field effect transistors based on bilayer graphene and graphene epitaxially grown on a silicon carbide, as very promising for ultralow power graphene chips, given their excellent performance at very low supply voltage.
Prof. Masashi Shiraishi from Osaka University, presented results on generation, control, and manipulation of spin current in single- and multi-layer graphene at room temperature. This basic science experiments can be important milestones for future graphene spin transistors.
The peculiar mechanical properties of graphene can be exploited in Nano-Electro-Mechanical Systems (NEMS). Prof. James Hone, from Columbia University, reported on the fabrication and modeling of high-frequency NEMS resonators with electrical readouts. They could represent a first step towards a completely new class of sensor applications.
