Graphene transistors in high-performance demonstration (BBC)

[eppur_se_muova]

By Jason Palmer
Science and technology reporter, BBC News

The hope for the "miracle material" graphene to fulfil its promise in electronics has received a boost - by changing the recipe when cooking it.

Graphene, one-atom-thick sheets of carbon, can carry electric charges far faster than currently used materials.

But it has proven difficult to make it behave as a semiconductor like silicon, or to attach "contacts" to the sheets.

A study in Nature Communications solves those problems by cooking up graphene from a material called silicon carbide.
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more: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-18868848
original paper: http://www.nature.com/ncomms/journal/v3/n7/full/ncomms1955.html

[AlecBGreen]

1. can someone clear this statement up for me?

"Graphene, one-atom-thick sheets of carbon, can carry electric charges far faster than currently used materials."

I thought all conductors allow electricity to move through it at the speed of light. I.e. a current moving though a copper rod or an iron rod or a graphene rod would all move at the same rate. Am I wrong in this thinking or am I misreading the statement (or both?)? Gracias!

[Posteritatis]

3. "The speed of light" as popularly understood is the speed of light in a vacuum

That one is The Limit, but the speed of light in any given substance is different.

As with sound, it can vary depending on what it's passing through. Light travels more slowly through air than through vacuum, more slowly through water than through air, and so on. It's still moving preposterously fast in any of those media, but the speed differences can actually start to add up with very high-speed computing. (The limits of the speed of light are already a concern in a lot of supercomputers.)

So c, the speed of light in vacuum, cannot, as far as we know, be exceeded, but the light itself is slowed down when it passes through something. The speed of light in water's about three quarters of c, which is still 225,000 kilometers per second.

(For extra fun, you can exceed local lightspeed by sending something through, say, water at 0.9c. The effects of that are what causes the blue glow you see in nuclear reactors.)

[AlecBGreen]

4. understood, thanks

after i read your explanation im kind of kicking myself. Duh. Light moves though air and water @ different speeds which accounts for things being underwater to appear "in a different place"

[LongTomH]

2. Do a Google search on 'Graphene'! You'll get some interesting results!

It can be used as a photocatalyst for artificial photosynthesis:
http://www.zdnet.com/graphene-gives-renewable-fuel-research-a-boost-7000001123/

It can be used in water desalination:
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/rundown/2012/07/researchers-consider-graphene-as-a-cure-for-desalination-woes.html

It can also be used in tunable RF filters for wireless internet applications:
http://www.tvtechnology.com/distribution/0099/new-filter-design-uses-graphene/214528