Researchers find a way to switch graphene’s conductivity

A team of researchers from the University of Pennsylvania, University of California and University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign has demonstrated a way to change the amount of electrons that reside in a given region within a piece of graphene and have a proof-of-principle in making the fundamental building blocks of semiconductor devices using the 2D material. Their method enables this value to be tuned through the application of an electric field, which means that graphene circuits made in this way could theoretically be manipulated without physically altering the device.

Chemically doping graphene to achieve p- and n-type version of the material (similar to traditional circuits) is possible, but it comes at the price of sacrificing some of its unique electrical properties. A similar effect is possible by applying local voltage changes to the material, but manufacturing and placing the necessary electrodes is complicated. The team of researchers claims it has now come up with a non-destructive, reversible way of doping, that doesn’t involve any physical changes to the graphene.