Seminar Report 2010 - 2011 Graphene Transistor

INTRODUCTION

Transistors are vital components in electronic circuitry. High speed

processors emerging today rely on the high speed switching action of
transistors. Conventional transistors are Silicon based. A graphene transistor is
a nanoscale device based on graphene, a component of graphite with electronic
properties far superior to those of silicon. The device is a single-electron
transistor, which means that a single electron passes through it at any one time.
Scientists have predicted that graphene transistors could scale to transistor
channels as small as two nanometers (nm) with terahertz speeds.

The base of the graphene transistor is graphene .Graphene-based

processors could be a fast, low-power successor to silicon-based processors and
enable advances in microchip technology beyond the capabilities of those
using silicon as their semiconductor material. Electrons can move through
graphene at speeds ten to one thousand times greater than silicon. Furthermore,
unlike silicon, graphene's properties actually improve as the devices become
smaller. That capacity, coupled with the ability to operate at room temperature,
could allow more miniaturization which would, in turn, allow more
components to be placed on an integrated circuit (IC).

Before getting into detail about Graphene Transistors lets see about
Graphene.

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 Seminar Report 2010 - 2011 Graphene Transistor

GRAPHENE
Graphene is a one-atom-thick planar sheet of sp 2 -bonded carbon atoms
that are densely packed in a honeycomb crystal lattice. It can be viewed as an
atomic-scale chicken wire made of carbon atoms and their bonds. The name
comes from GRAPHITE + ENE; graphite itself consists of many graphene
sheets stacked together.

Carbon is one of the most versatile chemical elements. Because it can

form single, double and triple bonds, it forms thousands of chemical
compounds, and has numerous elemental structures, or allotropes. The most
common allotropes of carbon are diamond and graphite. Diamond consists of
carbon atoms single-bonded to four other carbon atoms producing a tetrahedral
crystal lattice. Its structure leads to its extreme hardness and thermal
conductivity, but diamond is a very poor electrical conductor. In contrast,
graphite consists of stacked layers of carbon sheets. Within an individual
carbon sheet, known as graphene, the carbon atoms are sp2 hybridized and
form a planar hexagonal lattice. The sp2 hybridization means that the carbons
are s-bonded in the plane, but are also p-bonded above and below the plane.
Graphene thus possesses one of the strongest bonds in nature and has a very
high tensile strength. Graphene’s perpendicular p-orbitals lead to electron
delocalization because there is no distinction between neighboring p bonds, as
indicated in Figure below.

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 Seminar Report 2010 - 2011 Graphene Transistor

Fig. Aromatic hydrocarbons like benzene shown here, share electrons in the p-
orbitals with many neighboring atoms.

This conjugated p orbital system permits the electrons to travel freely

above and below the plane of carbon atoms with minimal scattering. Because
of the minimal scattering and strong delocalization of the electrons, graphite is
a good conductor along the plane. However, in graphite, electrostatic forces
bind the layers together only very weakly, and graphite is a very soft mineral.
In addition, the other layers interfere with the behavior of the single sheets,
even if not strongly. An ideal system would be to study free single-layer
graphene, but until a few years ago, two-dimensional systems like free
graphene were believed to be impossible.

In recent years, the two most familiar allotropes of carbon have been
joined by a number of newly discovered graphene-like materials. The first
major graphene-related substance discovered was C60, also known as
buckminsterfullerene, buckyball, and fullerene, a soccer-ball-like configuration
of carbon atoms found in common lamp soot and known to be very stable.
Soon, the scientific community encountered similar fullerene-type carbon
structures called a carbon nanotubes. Carbon nanotubes are needle-like tubes of
rolled up graphene sheets that exhibit many unusual and useful properties such
as extreme tensile strength and high conductivity.

DISCOVERY OF GRAPHENE

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 Seminar Report 2010 - 2011 Graphene Transistor

Graphene, though only recently confirmed experimentally, has been

discussed in conjunction with graphite for many years. Many of its properties
had long been studied in conjunction with the properties of graphite, including
its band structure. For example, graphene was predicted to be a semiconductor
with no band gap at the corners of the reciprocal lattice using the tight-binding
approximation. But theoretical studies of graphene were historically limited
entirely to approximations for the properties of graphite.

Graphene as a free substance was largely ignored as a purely academic

substance because it was accepted that thermodynamic stresses prevented the
existence of any free one- or two dimensional crystals. Additionally, there had
been previous attempts to achieve two dimensional crystals, but in all cases, it
was confirmed that reducing the thickness made the crystals melt at
increasingly low temperatures and it was agreed that two dimensional crystals
were too unstable to exist in a free state. A possible explanation for the
disparity between theory predicting the non-existence of two-dimensional
crystals and their experimental confirmation may be that the graphene
monolayers are only approximately two-dimensional and owe some of their
stability to rippling perpendicular to the plane.

Fig. A representation of the rippling of 2D graphene into 3D. The red arrows are
~800nm long.
But in 2004, graphene was produced experimentally, defying decades of
predictions that it could not exist apart from a crystalline substrate. The

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 Seminar Report 2010 - 2011 Graphene Transistor

procedure for acquiring the monolayer graphene is comically simple:

essentially, graphene is removed from a graphite sample by using clear
adhesive tape to remove layers from graphite. The tape is then stuck to new
clean tape several times to remove additional layers. After a few times, the tape
is dissolved and the graphite remains are examined to sort the graphene
monolayers from the ultrathin graphite films. The difficulty is in sorting the
graphene from the graphite.

Fortunately, different thicknesses of graphite are distinguishable under

optical microscopy on a special silicon substrate. The adhesive tape technique
produces extremely high quality crystals of up to 100 micrometers in length,
more than sufficient for most laboratory experiments. And even better, the raw
materials are very cheap. But why is there such interest in graphene? Aside
from the obvious interest in the novelty of a two-dimensional crystal, graphene
crystals exhibit unusual electrical properties that may prove useful both
theoretically and practically. In particular, graphene’s charge carriers are very
unusual in that they behave like massless Driac fermions and are most
effectively described by the Dirac equation rather than the non-relativistic
Schrodinger equation:

EN = [2ehc2 B(N+1/2±1/2)]1/2.

GRAPHENE QUANTUM DOTS AS SINGLE ELECTRON

TRANSISTORS

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 Seminar Report 2010 - 2011 Graphene Transistor

Recent works demonstrates electron transport in quantum dot devices

carved entirely from graphene. At large sizes (>100 nanometers), they behave as
conventional single-electron transistors, exhibiting periodic Coulomb blockade
peaks. For quantum dots smaller than 100 nanometers, the peaks become strongly
nonperiodic, indicating a major contribution of quantum confinement."

Quantum dot carved from a graphene sheet. (Image: Mesoscopic Physics Group,
University of Manchester)

Novoselov, The Royal Society Research Fellow, and a member of

the Mesoscopic Physics Group at the University of Manchester, is one of the
original team, led by Professor Andre Geim, that discovered graphene in 2004.
In a recent progress article in Science ("Chaotic Dirac Billiard in Graphene
Quantum Dots") Novoselov and Geim show that graphene can be carved into
tiny electronic circuits with individual transistors having a size not much
larger than that of a molecule.

The University of Manchester group has developed an approach that lets

them reliably fabricate graphene quantum dots with features as small as 10
nanometers. They found three basic operational regimes for these quantum dots,
depending on their size.
Devices larger than 100 nm exhibit nearly periodic Coulomb
blockade resonances. "In general, the behavior we observed is in agreement with

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 Seminar Report 2010 - 2011 Graphene Transistor

the one exhibited by conventional single-electron transistors (SET)" says

Novoselov. “The all-graphene SETs we fabricated are technologically simple,
reliable, and robust and can operate well above liquid-helium temperatures,
making them attractive candidates for use in various charge-detector schemes."
For devices smaller than 100 nm, the scientists observed a qualitative
change in behavior: Coulomb blockade peaks were no longer a periodic function
of the back-gate voltage but varied strongly in their spacing. "This is a clear
indication that the size quantization becomes an important factor even for such a
modest confinement" says Novoselov.
He notes that for even smaller devices (<30nm), the experimental behavior
is completely dominated by quantum confinement. "However, because even the
state-of-the-art lithography does not allow one to control features <10 nm in size,
the experimental behavior varies widely. Some of the devices become overetched
and stop conducting, but in other cases we have narrowed them down to a few
nanometers so that they exhibit the transistor action even at room temperature."
Unlike any other material, graphene remains mechanically and chemically
stable and highly conductive at the scale of a few benzene rings, which makes it
uniquely suitable for the top-down approach to molecular-scale electronics.

OPERATON AT GHz FREQUENCIES

Top-gated graphene transistors operating at high frequencies (GHz)
have been fabricated. The work represents a significant step towards the
realization of graphene-based electronics for high-frequency applications.
Graphene is a two-dimensional (2D) material with great potential for
electronics with essentially the same lattice structure as an unwrapped carbon
nanotube, graphene shares many of the advantages of nanotubes, such as the
highest intrinsic carrier mobility at room temperature of any known materials.
This makes these carbon-based electronic materials particularly promising for
high-frequency circuits. However, due to the high impedance of a single carbon
nanotube transistor, high-frequency properties of nanotubes were investigated
indirectly using various mixing techniques and direct ac measurements of these

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 Seminar Report 2010 - 2011 Graphene Transistor

devices at GHz frequencies were realized only recently enabled by the larger
device current in nanotube arrays. In contrast, one distinct advantage of
graphene lies in its 2D nature, so that the drive current of a graphene device, in
principle, can be easily scaled up by increasing the device channel width. This
width scaling capability of graphene is of great significance for realizing high-
frequency graphene devices with sufficient drive current for large circuits and
associated measurements. Furthermore, the planar graphene allows for the
fabrication of graphene devices and even integrated circuits utilizing well-
established planar processes in the semiconductor industry. Recently, it was
shown that graphene devices can exhibit current gain in the microwave
frequency range .

Despite intense activities on graphene research, the intrinsic high-

frequency transport properties of graphene transistors have not been
systematically studied. This topic presents the first comprehensive
experimental studies on the highfrequency response of top-gated graphene
transistors for different gate voltages and gate lengths. The intrinsic current
gain of the graphene transistors was found to decrease with increasing
frequency and follows the ideal 1/f dependence expected for conventional
FETs. This not only verifies the ac measurement and de-embedding procedures
used here for extracting the intrinsic high frequency properties, but also
suggests a conventional FET-like behavior for grapheme transistors. The cutoff
frequency fT deduced from S parameter measurements exhibits strong gate
voltage dependence and is proportional to the dc transconductance. The peak
cut-off frequency is found to be inversely proportional to the square of the gate
length, and for a gate length of 150 nm, a peak fT as high as 26 GHz is
obtained.

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 Seminar Report 2010 - 2011 Graphene Transistor

Fig. A Optical image of the device layout

Fig. B

Fig. C Schematic cross-section of the graphene transistor

Fig. 1. Device layout of graphene field-effect transistors

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 Seminar Report 2010 - 2011 Graphene Transistor

Figure 1 shows the device layout of graphene field-effect transistors

with probe pads designed for high-frequency measurements. Graphene was
prepared by mechanical exfoliation on a high resistivity Si substrate (>10 kΩ
cm) covered by a layer of 300nm thermal SiO2, and Raman spectroscopy was
employed to count the number of grapheme layers. Fig. 1(B) shows the optical
image of a graphene flake, where the region on the left was identified to be
single-layer graphene. Source and drain electrodes made of 1 nm Ti as the
adhesion layer and 50 nm-thick Pd were defined by e-beam lithography and
lift-off. A 12-nm-thick Al2O3 layer was then deposited by atomic layer
deposition (ALD) at 250oC as the gate insulator.

In order to form a uniform coating of oxide on graphene, a

functionalization layer consisting of 50 cycles of NO2- TMA
(trimethylaluminum) was first deposited prior to the growth of gate oxide. This
NO2-TMA functionalization layer was essential for the ALD process to
achieve thin (<10 nm) gate dielectrics on grapheme without producing pinholes
that cause gate leakage. The dielectric constant of ALD-grown Al2O3 is
determined by C-V measurements and found to be about 7.5. Lastly,
10nm/50nm Pd/Au was deposited and patterned to form the top gate.

As shown in Fig. 1(B), the source electrodes were designed to overlap

the entire graphene flake (see figure inset) in order to minimize the uncertainty
in the de-embedding process for high-frequency Sparameter measurements, as
explained below.

In the device shown in Fig. 1(B), the distance between the source and
drain electrodes is 500 nm, and the top gate underlaps the source-drain gap
with a gate length LG of 360 nm. The total gate width (or channel width),
including both channels, is ~ 40μm. Fig. 1(A) shows the optical image of the
complete device layout where the standard ground-signal-ground probing pads
are realized for the gate and the drain to allow for transition from coax to on-

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 Seminar Report 2010 - 2011 Graphene Transistor

chip coplanar waveguide (CPW) electrodes. Measurements of dc electrical

properties of graphene devices were performed in order to gain insight into
their high-frequency response. In addition, the dc electrical characteristics were
monitored at each fabrication step so that issues affecting the final device
performance could be identified.

A Fig. Measured output characteristics of the graphene transistor for various top-gate
voltages

The dc electrical characteristics of the completed graphene device after

the deposition of the top-gate electrode are shown in Fig. The inset shows the
measured current as a function of (top-gate) voltage VG at a drain bias of VD =
100 mV. Despite the small on/off ratio, the graphene devices are essentially
ambipolar field-effect transistors, as indicated by the "V"-shape gate
dependence in the measured ID-VG curve. In these graphene field-effect
transistors (GFET), the transport is dominated by electrons and holes for
positive and negative gate voltages, respectively, and the conductance
minimum is denoted as the Dirac point where electrons and holes make equal
contributions to the transport.

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 Seminar Report 2010 - 2011 Graphene Transistor

Fig. shows the n-type output characteristics, ID-VD, of the grapheme

transistor at various gate voltages. It is found that the top-gated GFETs studied
here exhibit a nearly linear ID-VD dependence up to 1.6 V for the gate voltage
ranges measured. This lack of current saturation is due to the fact that graphene
is a zero-gap semiconductor. It has been suggested that velocity saturation at
higher biases may lead to the current saturation phenomenon in
graphene transistors. However, a higher carrier mobility may be required to
achieve this saturation velocity within the drain bias of practical interest.

The de-embedded S parameters constitute a complete set of coefficients

to describe intrinsic input and output behaviors of the graphene device, and can
be used to derive other important electrical properties such as gain.

Fig. The current gain h21

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 Seminar Report 2010 - 2011 Graphene Transistor

In Fig. the de-embedded current gain h21 decreases with increasing

frequency following the 1/f slope expected for a conventional FET. In a regular
FET, this 1/f frequency dependence of h21, equivalent to a decay slope of
-20dB/decade, results from the gate impedance given by Z = 1/jωCG, where ω
= 2πf and CG is the gate capacitance, that decreases with increasing frequency.
Therefore, the 1/f dependence of current gain obtained in Fig. is significant
because it not only validates the high-frequency measurements and the de-
embedding procedures used to extract the intrinsic GFET characteristics, but it
also suggests regular FET-like behaviors for graphene transistors as a function
of frequency. One of the important figures of merit for characterizing high-
frequency transistors is the cut-off frequency fT, defined as the frequency
where the current gain becomes unity (h21 = 1). In practice, for a transistor
possessing the ideal -20dB/decade slope for h21, the cut-off frequency fT is
determined by the product of h21 and frequency, i.e. f × h21(f), over the
measured frequency range. Thus, for the device shown in Fig. 4, the cut-off
frequency fT can be determined by either approach to be ~ 4 GHz. The high-
frequency operation of the graphene transistor is found to be highly dependent
on the dc bias condition.

Fig. shows the measured cut-off frequency fT of the GFET as a function

of gate voltage. At all gate voltages, the de-embedded current gain h21 exhibits
the 1/f frequency dependence similar to that shown in Fig. so that the cut-off
frequency can be reliably determined. The n-branch of the graphene transistor
is shown here because of the higher transconductance for electrons than for
holes in this device. These results show that the high-frequency behavior of
these graphene transistors can be described as an FET with a static, constant
gate capacitance within a significant portion of the bias range. In principle, the
maximum cut-off frequency of an FET can be improved by reducing the gate
length. To investigate the length dependence of fT in graphene devices,

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 Seminar Report 2010 - 2011 Graphene Transistor

graphene transistors with various gate lengths down to 150 nm were fabricated
and investigated for their high-frequency operations.

All of the graphene devices studied here were prepared in one batch and
on the same chip in order to minimize the device-to-device variations
introduced in the fabrication processes. As before, mobility degradation was
observed in all devices after ALD oxide deposition. The maximum fT was
found to increase with reduced gate lengths, as expected, and for the 150-
nmgate GFET, a peak cut-off frequency as high as 26 GHz was obtained, as
shown in Fig. 6. To the authors’ knowledge, this is the highest value measured
for grapheme transistors to date.

In summary, top-gated graphene transistors of various gate lengths were

fabricated and their high-frequency response was directly characterized by
standard S-parameter measurements. The short-circuit current gain showed the
ideal 1/f frequency dependence, confirming the measurement quality and the
FET-like behavior for graphene devices. As the gate voltage is varied, the
measured fT was found to be proportional to the dc transconductance gm,
following the relation fT = gm/(2π CG). Furthermore, fT was found to
increase with decreasing channel length, with the scaling dependence fT ~
1/LG 2 for the GFETs studied here. A peak cut-off frequency fT as high as 26
GHz was measured for a 150- nm-gate graphene transistor, establishing the
state of the art for graphene transistors. These results also indicate that if the
high mobility of graphene can be preserved during the device fabrication
process, a cut-off frequency approaching THz may be achieved for graphene
FET with a gate length of just 50nm and carrier mobility of 2000 cm2/Vs.

GRAPHENE NANORIBBON FET(GNRFET)

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 Seminar Report 2010 - 2011 Graphene Transistor

Fig. GNRFET device

Sub-10nm wide graphene nanoribbon field-effect transistors

(GNRFETs) are studied systematically. All sub-10nm GNRs afforded
semiconducting FETs without exception, with Ion/Ioff ratio up to 106 and on-
state current density as high as ~2000μA/μm. We estimated carrier mobility
~200cm2/Vs and scattering mean free path ~10nm in sub-10nm GNRs.

Scattering mechanisms by edges, acoustic phonon and defects are discussed.

The sub-10nm GNRFETs are comparable to small diameter (d≤~1.2nm) carbon
nanotube FETs with Pd contacts in on-state current density and Ion/Ioff ratio,
but have the advantage of producing allsemiconducting devices.

Since our GNRFETs were Schottky barrier (SB) type FETs where the
current was modulated by carrier tunnelling probability through SB at contacts,
high work function metal Pd was used to minimize the SB height for holes in
p-type transistors. In fact we used Ti/Au as contact and found that Pd did give
higher Ion in device with similar dimensions. 10nm SiO2 gate dielectrics was
also important to achieve higher Ion because it significantly reduced SB

width at contacts compared to 300nm in previous work

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 Seminar Report 2010 - 2011 Graphene Transistor

For wide GNR devices, they all showed metallic behavior because of
vanishingly small bandgaps. Compared to sub-10nm GNRFETs with similar
channel length, the current density in wide GNR devices was usually higher
(~3000μA/μm at Vds=1V for the device in. We note that our wide GNRs
showed relatively weak gate dependence in transfer characteristics, likely due
to interaction between layers. The Dirac point was usually not observed around
zero gate bias, indicating p-doping effects at the edges or by physisorbed
species during the chemical treatment steps.

Fig. Transfer and output characteristics of the device

We next analyze how close the GNRFET operates to the ballistic

performance limits by comparing experiments with theoretical modelling. The
theoretical model computes the ballistic performance limits by assuming a
single ballistic channel and ideal contacts (sufficiently negative SBs).

Any subsequent edge scattering after OP/ZBP emission has a small

direct effect on the DC current because edge scattering is elastic and does not
change the carrier energy. Such a carrier rattles around in the channel and
finally diffuses out of the drain. At high drain biases, therefore, only elastic

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scattering near the beginning of the channel matters and the rest of the channel
essentially operates as a carrier absorber.

Our sub-10nm GNRFETs afford all-semiconducting nano-scale

transistors that are comparable in performance to small diameter carbon
nanotube devices. GNRs are possible candidates for future nano-electronics.
Future work should focus on elucidating the atomic structures of the edges of
our GNRs and correlate with the performances of GNRFETs. The integration
of ultra thin high dielectrics and more aggressive channel length scaling is also
needed to achieve better electrostatics, higher Ion and ideal subthreshold slope.

TUNABLE GRAPHENE SINGLE ELECTRON

TRANSISTOR

The device consists of a graphene island connected to source and drain

electrodes via two narrow grapheme constrictions. It is electrostatically tunable
by three lateral graphene gates and an additional back gate. The tunneling
coupling is a strongly nonmonotonic function of gate voltage indicating the
presence of localized states in the barriers. We investigate energy scales for the
tunneling gap, the resonances in the constrictions and for the Coulomb
blockade resonances. From Coulomb diamond measurements in different

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device configurations (i.e. barrier configurations) we extract a charging energy

of _ 3.4 meV and estimate a characteristic energy scale for the constriction
resonances of _ 10 meV

Fig. Graphene single electron transistor(SET)

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 Seminar Report 2010 - 2011 Graphene Transistor

Fig. Schematic illustration of the tunable SET device with electrode assignment

Here we investigate a fully tunable single electron transistor (SET) that

consists of a width modulated grapheme structure exhibiting spatially separated
transport gaps. SETs consist of a conducting island connected by tunneling
barriers to two conducting leads. Electronic transport through the device can be
blocked by Coulomb interaction for temperatures and bias voltages lower than
the characteristic energy required to add an electron to the island. The sample is
fabricated based on single-layer grapheme flakes obtained from mechanical
exfoliation of bulk graphite. These flakes are deposited on a highly doped
silicon substrate with a 295 nm silicon oxide layer. Electron beam (e-beam)
lithography is used for patterning the isolated graphene flake by subsequent
Ar/O2 reactive ion etching. Finally, an additional e-beam and lift-off step is
performed to pattern Ti/Au (2nm/50 nm) electrodes.

TABLE I: Capacitances and lever arms of the different gate electrodes, including source
and drain contacts, with respect to the graphene island. Most values are independent
from the measurement regime, NN or NP. If there is a difference the NP value is given
and the NN value is put in brackets.

In conclusion, we have fabricated and characterized a fully tunable

graphene single electron transistor based on an etched width-modulated
graphene nanostructure with lateral graphene gates. Its functionality was
demonstrated by observing electrostatic control over the tunneling barriers.
From Coulomb diamond measurements it was estimated that the charging

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 Seminar Report 2010 - 2011 Graphene Transistor

energy of the grapheme island is 3.4 meV, compatible with its lithographic
dimensions.
These results give detailed insights into tunable graphene quantum dot
devices and open the way to study graphene quantum dots with smaller
dimensions and at lower temperatures.

FABRICATION PROCESS

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 Seminar Report 2010 - 2011 Graphene Transistor

1. First, an iron catalyst is formed into the desired channel shape, using a
conventional photolithographic process.

2. Graphene is then formed on the iron layer via CVD.

3. Source and drain electrodes of titanium-gold film are formed at both ends of
the graphene, thereby "fixing" the graphene.

4. Next, just the iron catalyst is removed using acid, leaving the graphene
suspended between the source and drain electrodes, with the graphene
"bridged" between the electrodes.

5. Using atomic-layer deposition (ALD), a method for forming thin films, a

layer of hafnium dioxide (HfO2) is grown on top of the graphene to stabilize the
graphene.

6. Finally, a gate electrode is formed on top of the graphene and through the
HfO2, resulting in the formation of a graphene transistor.

CONCLUSION

Although promising, graphene based electronics faces many obstacles

before it can become a competitive technology. Minimum conduction has to be
decreased, device to device variability has to be controlled, and a stable gate
dielectric must be found. However the chip level integration of hundreds of
graphene devices on insulating SiC substrates is a step towards making
graphene technology possible. The main driver for a graphene technology is

clearly mobility.

A necessary and important aspect of engineering course is technical

seminar. It gives an engineer to face and gain the knowledge of various

Dept. of Electronics Engineering 21 G.P.T.C. Kaduthuruthy

 Seminar Report 2010 - 2011 Graphene Transistor

technical fields. Knowledge of that field helps the student to connect from the
technical world.

This seminar report represents the whole knowledge of Graphene

Transistor. In everywhere in industries programmable logic controller is used.
We can say that now a days the grapheme transistor become the back bone of
the modern electronic field. So, I thought to take my technical seminar
onGraphene Transistor. I learn a lot of knowledge.

REFERENCE

• IBM Press release

• Fujitsu laboratories

• MIT’s Technology review

• IEEE XPLORE digital library

• Wikipedia

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 Seminar Report 2010 - 2011 Graphene Transistor

ABSTRACT

A graphene transistor is a nanoscale device based on graphene, a component of

graphite with electronic properties far superior to those of silicon. The device is
a single-electron transistor, which means that a single electron passes through it
at any one time.

A research team led by Professor Andre Geim of the Manchester Centre for
Mesoscience and Nanotechnology built a graphene transistor and described it
in the March 2007 issue of Nature magazine.

In FeB 2010,IBM demonstrated a 100GHz Graphene Transistor.

Features of the graphene transistor include:

 the ability to operate at room temperature.

 a size one atom by 10 atoms wide.

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 extreme sensitivity.

 the ability to operate with the application of very low voltages.

These qualities mean that graphene-based processors could be a fast, low-

power successor to silicon-based processors and enable advances in microchip
technology beyond the capabilities of those using silicon as
their semiconductor material. Electrons can move through graphene at speeds
ten to one thousand times greater than silicon. Furthermore, unlike silicon,
graphene's properties actually improve as the devices become smaller. That
capacity, coupled with the ability to operate at room temperature, could allow
more miniaturization which would, in turn, allow more components to be
placed on an integrated circuit (IC).

Scientists have predicted that graphene transistors could scale to transistor

channels as small as two nanometers (nm) withterahertz speeds.

TABLE OF CONTENTS.

SL NO. TITLE. PAGE No.

1. INTRODUCTION 1

2. GRAPHENE 2

3. DISCOVERY OF GRAPHENE 4

4. GRAPHENE QUANTUM DOTS AS SET 6

5. OPERATION AT GHz FREQUENCIES 8

6. GNRFET 15

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7. TUNABLE GRAPHENE SET 18

8. FABRICATION PROCESS 21

9. CONCLUSION 22

10. REFERENCE 23

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