Berkeley Lab Researchers Discover a Tiny Twist in Bilayer
Graphene That May Solve a Mystery
Researchers with the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE)’s
Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) have discovered a unique
new twist to the story of graphene, sheets of pure carbon just one atom thick,
and in the process appear to have solved a mystery that has held back device
development.
Electrons can race through graphene at nearly the speed of
light – 100 times faster than they move through silicon. In addition to being
superthin and superfast when it comes to conducting electrons, graphene is also
superstrong and superflexible, making it a potential superstar material in the
electronics and photonics fields, the basis for a host of devices, starting
with ultrafast transistors. One big problem, however, has been that graphene’s
electron conduction can’t be completely
stopped, an essential requirement for on/off devices.