Nano chemists research team of Stanford University have successfully demonstrated that carbon nanoribbons can be used to make transistors which can be integrated into computer chips to increase speed with low heating. Recent study published online in Physical Review Letters and previous one in Science, looks set to revolutionalise new generation computer chips. The research team has demonstrated that nanoribbons made from graphene (a form of carbon made grahite) can be used to make field-effect transistors which are building blocks of computer-chips. This has been attempted before with wider nanoribbons but they worked only at low temperatures. Standford researchers lead by Hongjie Dai have made graphene ribbons less than 10 nanometers wide, which when integrated into transistor can work at room temperature as well.
As the size of computers shrink, the chips need to be scaled down and transistors need to be made smaller. Also everything has to work at room temperature. Silicon based chips have a dimension saturation limit. They cannot shrink further. So the researchers are exploring other options such as graphene which can be easily made into nanoribbons and integrated with silicon in future generation computer chips and pack them in smaller size.
Scientific research always holds promise for new technology to emerge. Maybe assembly line manufacturing of these newer nanoribbon transistors and chips is still a distant dream but these nano building blocks are being identified and experimented for future use.
Source: Stanford University
