Georgia Tech researchers develop computing breakthrough with new semiconductor

ATLANTA - Researchers at Georgia Tech have successfully created the world's first functional semiconductor made from graphene.

The material is a single sheet of carbon atoms that are held together by the strongest bonds currently known by science.

The school says the discovery "throws open the door to a new way of doing electronics."

The graphene-based semiconductors could replace silicon, the material that is used in nearly all modern electronics and is getting close to the limit of its computational power.

The group of researchers from Atlanta and Tianjin, China was led by Walter de Heer, a professor of physics at Georgia Tech. He told the university that he's been exploring the possibilities for the material in electronics for more than two decades.

"We were motivated by the hope of introducing three special properties of graphene into electronics," he said. "It's an extremely robust material, one that can handle very large currents, and can do so without heating up and falling apart."

The team says their measurements show their semiconductor has 10 times greater mobility than silicon - which can lead to much faster computing.

"It's like driving on a gravel road versus driving on a freeway," de Heer said. "It's more efficient, it doesn't heat up as much, and it allows for higher speeds so that the electrons can move faster."

De Heer called the discovery "a Wright brothers moment.

"They built a plane that could fly 300 feet through the air. But the skeptics asked why the world would need flight when it already had fast trains and boats. But they persisted, and it was the beginning of a technology that can take people across oceans," he said.

It's the first and only two-dimensional semiconductor in the world that could be used in nanoelectronics, the university said.