Graphene rival ‘phosphorene’ is born to be a transistor

New Scientist

Image:  CORE-Materials

It may have won its discovers the Nobel prize, but graphene now has a serious rival.

“Phosphorene” – which has a similar structure to carbon-based graphene but is made of phosphorus atoms – is a natural semiconductor and so may be better at turbocharging the next generation of computers. The new material has already been used to make rudimentary transistors.

Discovered 10 years ago, graphene is a form of pure carbon just a few atoms thick. This thinness causes electrons to zip across it much faster than they do across silicon, the material at the heart of today’s computer chips. So the hope is that graphene chips could eventually replace silicon, leading to much faster computers.

But graphene has a fundamental limitation, says Peide Ye at Purdue University in West Lafayette, Indiana. It conducts electricity a little too well. Read more on newscientist.com…