Polish discovery — large scale production of graphene made possible

The discovery can help to revolutionize computer market in the future. Poles are ahead of other groups of scientists around the world who work on methods of industrial production of graphene.

Graphene is an extraordinary material. It consists of a single layer of carbon atoms. It is several hundred times stronger than steel but bends. Conducts the current hundred times better than copper and much better than silicon, which is still a base of all systems used in electronics, including computers.

For the discovery of graphene's properties, scientists Andre Geim and Novoselov Konstantin got a Nobel Prize in physics last year. However, graphene they had made was in a form of tiny flakes with an area of ??tens of microns. This is not enough and the material was not suitable for commercial exploitation.

Polish scientists from Institute of Electronic Materials Technology, and from Department of Physics, University of Warsaw have overcamed this barrier and managed to devise a way to transfer the production of graphene from the laboratory to the factory scale. They used standard equipment being used for years for the manufacture of semiconductor structures. Success is reported in one of recent issues of NanoLetters journal.

- Our method allows to produce large areas of graphene of highest quality. It will be possible to fit more electronics on a small area - explains Prof. Jacek Baranowski - As a result, computers will be smaller, more fuel-efficient, and several hundred times faster.

According to professor new material is in advance of silicon, which electronic era is inevitably coming to an end. - In ten years miniaturization of silicon based systems will achieve an end and graphene will replace them - he says.

It is true that Americans have already found a way. But their proposal, based on the use of silicon carbide requires heating to extreme temperatures - over 1500 degrees Celsius. This is a significant drawback from economical point of view.

Poles now work on graphene-based transistor, which should be ready next year. These devices will operate at frequencies of hundreds of terahertz, values inaccessible for silicon.

News from Rzeczpospolita newspaper. Prof. Baranowski was interviewed also by Rzeczpospolita. Link to source.