Latest Graphene Research Could Lead to Improvements in Bluetooth Headsets and Other Wireless Devices
Researchers at UC Riverside continue advancements with graphene, the single-atom thick carbon crystal that was the subject of this year's Nobel Prize in physics
Story content courtesy of University of California-Riverside, US
Researchers at the UC Riverside Bourns College of Engineering have built and successfully tested an amplifier made from graphene that could lead to more efficient circuits in electronic chips, such as those used in Bluetooth headsets and toll collection devices in cars. The demonstration at UCR of the graphene amplifier with signal processing functions is a major step forward in graphene technology because it is a transition from individual graphene devices to graphene circuits and chips, said Alexander Balandin, a professor of electrical engineering, who performed the work along with a graduate student and researchers at Rice University.
The graphene amplifier reveals greater functionality and a faster speed because of graphene’s electrical ambipolarity (current conduction by negative and positive charges). It can be switched between different modes of operation by a simple change of applied voltage. These characteristics are expected to result in simpler and smaller chips, a faster system response and less power consumption.
The fabrication and experimental testing were performed in Balandin's Nano-Device Laboratory. The co-authors of the paper are Guanxiong Liu, one of Balandin’s graduate students, Kartik Mohanram, an assistant professor at Rice University, and Xuebei Yan, one of Mohanram's graduate students.
The researchers from Rice University designed the amplifier and testing protocol. Liu built the device in the UCR clean room. Liu and Yan then tested the amplifier in Balandin’s lab.
