Graphene is considered by many as the successor to silicon because its electron mobility can be over 10X that of silicon plus it solves many of the problems with scaling silicon. However, graphene's lack of the bandgap it needs to create transistors has slowed its development. Now researchers propose coating it with a conductive polymer to produce organic electronics that rival silicon at a fraction of the price.
Researchers at the Umeå University (Sweden) in collaboration with Stanford University and its Synchrontron Radiation Lightsource at SLAC (formerly the Stanford Linear Acceleration Center) created prototypes of the new hybrid graphene/polymer material with remarkable results. Besides greatly accelerating the polymer, making it into a high-mobility semiconductor, the hybrid material maintained its flexibility and seemed to work both for planar electronics and vertically oriented conduction for light-emitting diodes (LEDs) and solar cells.
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