Metallic carbon electric circuits for the development of faster and more efficient transistors

Transistors based on carbon and not on silicon will be able to accelerate the speed of computing and reduce the energy consumption of devices such as computers, mobile phones and the like

[Translation by Dr. Moshe Nachmani]

A team of chemists and physicists from the University of California at Berkeley succeeded in developing the most advanced tool in the field of transistors - a metallic wire made entirely of carbon. "Activity with the same material, i.e. carbon-based materials, is what makes it possible to develop this technology now," explains Felix Fischer, professor of chemistry at the University of Berkeley, while adding and explaining that the production of all the components of the electric circuit from the same material makes the production process simpler and easier.

Metallic wires - similar to the metallic wires used to connect transistors in a computer chip - transfer an electric current from one device to another and also connect the semi-conducting components inside the transistors, the building blocks of computers.  

The research group from the University of Berkeley has been investigating for several years how to produce semiconductors and insulators from graphene nanostrips, which are narrow, one-dimensional strips made of monoatomic graphene, a structure composed entirely of only carbon atoms organized in a pattern of connected hexagons, similar to the fence of a chicken coop.

The innovative metal, which is based only on carbon, is also a graphene nanoribbon, but it has been designed so that it can be used mainly for the flow of electrons between semiconducting nanoribbons in transistors made only of carbon. The metal nanostrips were built by joining together smaller and identical building blocks - in a 'bottom-up design' approach, notes one of the researchers. Each of the building blocks contributes a single electron that is able to move freely along the nanostrip.

Although other carbon-based materials – such as extensive two-dimensional sheets of graphene and carbon nanotubes – can be metallic, they have their drawbacks. Designing a XNUMXD sheet into nanoscale strips, for example, spontaneously turns it into a semiconductor, or even, in some cases, an insulator. Carbon nanotubes, which are excellent conductors, cannot be produced with the same levels of precision and frequency in large quantities. "Nanostrips allow us chemical access to a wide range of structures produced in a bottom-up approach, which is not yet possible with nanotubes," explains the researcher. "This fact allowed us to actually connect electrons together for the production of a metallic nanostrip, something that had not been done before. This is one of the biggest challenges in the field of graphene nanoribbon technology, and the fact that we are so excited about our findings."

"We believe that the metal wires are indeed a breakthrough; This is the first time ever that we are able to create an extremely narrow metallic conductor that functions as an excellent conductor, and all this from materials based only on carbon, without the need for external insulation," explains the lead researcher.

The research findings were published in the prestigious scientific journal Science. 

to the announcement of the University of California at Berkeley

More of the topic in Hayadan:

• Transistors composed entirely of nanocrystals
• Is the Silicon Age over? Transistors without semiconductors
• A monoatomic transistor is the perfect transistor
• The next twenty years of microchips