Graphene is a sheet of carbon atoms arrayed in a honeycomb pattern, just a single atom thick. It could be a better semiconductor than silicon -- if we could fashion it into ribbons 20 to 50 atoms wide. Could DNA help?
DNA is the blueprint for life. Could it also become the template for making a new generation of computer chips based not on silicon, but on an experimental material known as graphene?
That's the theory behind a process that Stanford chemical engineering professor Zhenan Bao reveals in Nature Communications.
Bao and her co-authors, former post-doctoral fellows Anatoliy Sokolov and Fung Ling Yap, hope to solve a problem clouding the future of electronics: consumers expect silicon chips to continue getting smaller, faster and cheaper, but engineers fear that this virtuous cycle could grind to a halt.
Why has to do with how silicon chips work.
To read more, click here.