Graphene transistors created for microelectronics

BBC : To make faster computer chips, researchers are seeking to replace silicon with graphene, whose electrical conductivity is hundreds of times greater. Unfortunately, although graphene is an excellent conductor, it makes a poor semiconductor. It is also very fragile. To resolve those difficulties, researchers at Friedrich-Alexander University of Erlangen-Nuremberg in Germany have been working with structures that consist of graphene sheets atop silicon carbide wafers. By heating the material and etching channels into it with a high-energy beam of atoms, the researchers have created multilayer chips with both conducting (graphene) and semiconducting (SiC) regions. As described in a paper published yesterday in Nature Communications, the devices perform well even at megahertz frequencies.