PARIS — Researchers at the University of Manchester (England) claimed they have produced tiny liquid crystal devices with graphene electrodes. This could lead to the development of computer and TV displays based on this technology.
The team of researchers said it has demonstrated "highly transparent" and "highly conductive ultra-thin films" that can be produced cheaply by dissolving chunks of graphite into graphene and spraying the suspension onto a glass surface.
Scientists claimed that the resulting graphene-based films can be used in LCDs, and presented the first liquid crystal devices with graphene electrodes.
Recently, researchers from the Max Planck Institute for Polymer Research in Germany said they had used graphene-based films to create transparent electrodes for solar cells. The Manchester team notified that the films they have developed "are much simpler to produce, and they can be used not only in LCDs but also in solar cells."
A few weeks ago, the Manchester research team demonstrated what they claim is the smallest transistor made, measuring one atom thick and ten atoms across.
The Manchester group created the transistors using standard semiconductor fabrication technology. They started with a small sheet of graphene and carve channels into the material using electron beam lithography. What remained was a quantum dot with a tiny circular cage at the center known as the central island. Voltage can change the conductivity of these quantum dots, allowing them to store logic states just like standard field-effect transistors.
