Posted June 10, 2010 Atlanta, GA Communications and Marketing
Scientists have made a breakthrough toward creating
nanocircuitry on graphene, widely regarded as the most promising
candidate to replace silicon as the building block of
transistors. They have devised a simple and quick one-step
process based on thermochemical nanolithography (TCNL) for
creating nanowires, tuning the electronic properties of reduced
graphene oxide on the nanoscale and thereby allowing it to
switch from being an insulating material to a conducting
material. The technique works with multiple forms of graphene
and is poised to become an important finding for the development
of graphene electronics. The research appears in the June 11,
2010, issue of the journal Science. Scientists who work with
nanocircuits are enthusiastic about graphene because electrons
meet with less resistance when they travel along graphene
compared to silicon and because today's silicon transistors are
nearly as small as allowed by the laws of physics. Graphen