Electrons given easy ride in graphene

Research has revealed that charged particles move through graphene, the 2D counterpart of graphite, more easily than in any other material.

Graphene turns out to be the ultimate playground for electrons

They have dubbed it the most important material for the future of electronics. The group found that although graphene has a fundamental limit determined by phonon interactions, the limit is far beyond anything else ever tested.

Professor Andre Geim from the University of Manchester, one of the paper’s authors said: “Graphene exhibits the highest electronic quality among all known materials – higher than copper, gold, silicon, gallium arsenide, carbon nanotubes – anything we know. It is the only material where electrons at room temperature can move thousands of interatomic distances without scattering.”

Graphene could become as essential to electronics as silicon or gallium arsenide and higher mobility will be a powerful facilitator. Its electronic properties open up the possibility of vast improvements to semiconductors. For example, developments in the terahertz gap, a difficult frequency range to work with, will become feasible thanks to grapheme. One such development is ultra-high frequency detectors or full-body scanners, which would make people transparent by operating at terahertz (THz) frequencies. 

Professor Geim added: “Our work puts fundamental limits on what can be potentially done by using graphene. Previously, researchers speculated that the sky was the limit for graphene's electronic quality. Now we know this limit accurately enough. It is not endless but sky-high.”

By Leila Sattary