Here’s how graphene could make future electronics superfast
The single layer of carbon atoms can boost signals from gigahertz to terahertz frequencies
SPECTRAL SPECTACLE New experiments show that graphene is especially good at translating incoming signals of one frequency (illustrated in red) into signals of higher frequencies (yellow, green and blue).
Graphene just added another badge to its supermaterial sash.
New experiments show that this single layer of carbon atoms can transform electronic signals at gigahertz frequencies into higher-frequency terahertz signals — which can shuttle up to 1,000 times as much information per second.
Electromagnetic waves in the terahertz range are notoriously difficult to create, and conventional silicon-based electronics have trouble handling such high-frequency signals (SN: 3/28/09, p. 24). But graphene-based devices could. These future electronics would work much faster than today’s devices, researchers report online September 10 in Nature.