Graphene enables clock rates in the terahertz range

Graphene -- an ultrathin material consisting of a single layer of interlinked carbon atoms -- is considered a promising candidate for the nanoelectronics of the future. In theory, it should allow clock rates up to a thousand times faster than today's silicon-based electronics. Scientists from the Helmholtz Zentrum Dresden-Rossendorf (HZDR) and the University of Duisburg-Essen (UDE), in cooperation with the Max Planck Institute for Polymer Research (MPI-P), have now shown for the first time that graphene can actually convert electronic signals with frequencies in the gigahertz range -- which correspond to today's clock rates -- extremely efficiently into signals with several times higher frequency. The researchers present their results in the scientific journal Nature.