Published in ScienceNow, 1 Mar 2012
Graphene, a layer of graphite just one atom thick, isn’t called a wonder material for nothing. The subject of the 2010 Nobel Prize in physics, it is famed for its superlative mechanical and electronic properties. Yet new computer simulations suggest that the electronic properties of a little-known sister material of graphene—graphyne—may in some ways be better.
The simulations show that graphyne’s conduction electrons should travel extremely fast—as they do in graphene—but in only one direction. That property could help researchers design faster transistors and other electronic components that process one-way current, says one of the study’s authors, theoretical chemist Andreas Görling of the University of Erlangen-Nuremberg in Germany. “If your material already conducts in one direction, you have a head start,” he says. […]
The rest of this article is available here.