Silicon semiconductor technology has done marvels for the advancement of our society, which has benefited tremendously from its versatile use and amazing capabilities. The development of electronics, automation, computers, digital cameras and recent smartphones based on this material and its underpinning technology has skyrocketed, downscaling the physical size of devices and wires to the nanometre regime.
Although this technology has been developing since the late 1960s, the miniaturization of circuits seems to have reached a possible end point, since transistors can only be shrunk down to a certain size and no further. Thus, there is a pressing need to complement Si CMOS technology with new materials, and to fulfill the future computing requirements as well as the needs for diversification of applications.
Now, graphene and related two-dimensional (2-D) materials offer prospects for unprecedented advances in device performance at the atomic limit. Their amazing potential has proven to be a possible solution to overcome the limitations of silicon technology, where the combination of 2-D materials with silicon chips promises to surpass current technological limitations.
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