All-graphene electronics by exploiting physical analogies

The concept of a bandgap is so deeply ingrained that it is hard to imagine an integrated circuit built on graphene, whose pristine state is a gapless material with charge carriers obeying the relativistic Dirac spectrum, analogous to light. Entertaining such notion is so appalling that many have proposed to cut graphene into bits and pieces, thinking that size quantization effect would recover a bandgap. Unfortunately, the edges are too disordered and unzipping nanotubes simply unzips more nightmares for device integration engineers. Embracing pristine graphene with its Dirac spectrum therefore appeals as a viable technological option worth careful investigation. Such “all-graphene electronics”, in which graphene is kept pristine and lithographic patterning is performed on the electrostatic gates or substrates instead, is the subject of this talk.