A Penn research team has developed a new technology that could make your next cell phone lighter, faster and cheaper.
Although many electronics are currently silicon-based, a substance called graphene may be replacing it in the near future.
Though the discovery of its possible uses won the 2010 Nobel Prize in physics, graphene is actually quite common, explained researcher Zhengtang Luo.
Everyone who has written with a graphite pencil has probably encountered graphene, Luo said. “A single layer of graphite — that’s graphene,” he said.
“Graphene has advantages over silicon,” Luo said. Graphene is thinner, faster and cheaper than silicon, and this could mean thinner, faster and cheaper electronics in the future.
According to Luo, graphene could have applications in devices from solar cells to DNA research — to what Luo described as an “electronic nose” that the team is currently designing.
They set out to design a device to sense molecules in the air, which could replace police dogs in the field. This device uses properties of graphene. However, the team found that the previous graphene synthesis processes had to be performed in a vacuum and produced low yields of graphene.
The Penn team then developed a new process and made it “more practical for industry applications,” Luo said. The team now uses a different surface to prepare graphene, which allows synthesis at atmospheric pressure. By removing the vacuum from the process, the team has reduced the cost involved in synthesis and made it more “compatible with existing industrial equipment,” Luo said.
Luo and others from the team have developed a company to see if the process can be commercialized and see if interest exists.
