It took 11 years to go from the development of the transistor to the integrated circuit. We went from there to the 286 in about 25 years. This is an exciting development, but I’m probably not going to live to see it in my home computer.
I wouldn’t be so sure about that.
Silicon is rapidly approaching its limits. There’s simply not much room for improvements. Graphene could be a sink for tons of investments, especially if it can deliver on the low power/high frequency promises.
Now, Walter de Heer at Georgia Tech in Atlanta and his colleagues have created graphene with a bandgap and even demonstrated a working transistor, an on/off switch that either prevents or allows current to flow through it.
Now let’s see how it holds up at a scale of production.
Scientists have been able to make graphene do tricks for a minute now, not to discount it in any way. The problem for a while now is that they haven’t been able to get it out of the lab and into a form of production. Let’s hope this is a step in to that future.
As the saying goes, “graphene can do anything except leave the lab”
