Graphene, a flat sheet of hexagonally arranged carbon atoms, can
transport electrons very quickly. This has made it a promising
material for high radio-frequency logic circuits, transparent
electrodes for flexible flat-panel displays, and high-surface-
area electrodes for ultracapacitors. Now researchers at the
National University of Singapore have made computer memory
devices using graphene. This is the first step toward memory
that could be much denser and faster than the magnetic memory
used in today’s hard drives. The researchers have made hundreds
of prototype graphene memory devices, and they work reliably,
according to Barbaros Özyilmaz, the physics professor who led
the work presented at a recent American Physical Society meeting
in Pittsburgh. “Graphene is going to change the electronic
industry,” he says. “What was missing was a way to use graphene
as a memory element. So far there was almost no interest because
it wasn’t [thought] doable.” The key to making memory elements
is a material that can hav