New research findings at MIT could lead to microchips that operate at much higher speeds than is possible with today's standard silicon chips, leading to cell phones and other communication systems that can transmit data much faster,reports spacemart.
The key to the superfast chips is the use of a material called graphene, a form of pure carbon that was first identified in 2004. Researchers at other institutions have already used the one-atom-thick layer of carbon atoms to make prototype transistors and other simple devices, but the latest MIT results could open up a range of new applications.
The MIT researchers built an experimental graphene chip known as a frequency multiplier, meaning it is capable of taking an incoming electrical signal of a certain frequency.Frequency multipliers are widely used in radio communications and other applications. But existing systems require multiple components, produce "noisy" signals that require filtering and consume large power, whereas the new graphene system has just a single transistor and produces, in a highly efficient manner, a clean output that needs no filtering.
"In physics today, graphene is, arguably, the most exciting topic," Palacios says.It is the strongest material ever discovered, and also has a number of unsurpassed electrical properties, such as "mobility" - the ease with which electrons can start moving in the material, key to use in electronics - which is 100 times that of silicon, the standard material of computer chips.
