Researchers Claim First Functioning Graphene-Based Chip

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"... The research ... focuses on leveraging epitaxial graphene, a crystal structure of carbon chemically bonded to silicon carbide (SiC). This novel semiconducting material, dubbed semiconducting epitaxial graphene (SEC) —or alternatively, epigraphene—boasts enhanced electron mobility compared with that of traditional silicon, allowing electrons to traverse with significantly less resistance. The outcome is transistors capable of operating at terahertz frequencies, offering speeds 10 times as fast as that of the silicon-based transistors used in current chips. ...
While it has been known since 2008 that it’s possible to make graphene behave like a semiconductor by heating it in a vacuum with SiC, it’s the method ... that makes the difference in the bandgap. ..."

"Researchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology have created the world’s first functional semiconductor made from graphene, a single sheet of carbon atoms held together by the strongest bonds known. ..."

From the abstract:

"Semiconducting graphene plays an important part in graphene nanoelectronics because of the lack of an intrinsic bandgap in graphene. In the past two decades, attempts to modify the bandgap either by quantum confinement or by chemical functionalization failed to produce viable semiconducting graphene. Here we demonstrate that semiconducting epigraphene (SEG) on single-crystal silicon carbide substrates has a band gap of 0.6 eV and room temperature mobilities exceeding 5,000 cm2 V−1 s−1, which is 10 times larger than that of silicon and 20 times larger than that of the other two-dimensional semiconductors. It is well known that when silicon evaporates from silicon carbide crystal surfaces, the carbon-rich surface crystallizes to produce graphene multilayers. The first graphitic layer to form on the silicon-terminated face of SiC is an insulating epigraphene layer that is partially covalently bonded to the SiC surface. Spectroscopic measurements of this buffer layer demonstrated semiconducting signatures, but the mobilities of this layer were limited because of disorder. Here we demonstrate a quasi-equilibrium annealing method that produces SEG (that is, a well-ordered buffer layer) on macroscopic atomically flat terraces. The SEG lattice is aligned with the SiC substrate. It is chemically, mechanically and thermally robust and can be patterned and seamlessly connected to semimetallic epigraphene using conventional semiconductor fabrication techniques. These essential properties make SEG suitable for nanoelectronics."

Researchers Claim First Functioning Graphene-Based Chip - IEEE Spectrum The semiconductor bests silicon alternatives for electron mobility

Researchers Create First Functional Semiconductor Made From Graphene (Georgia Tech) The technology could allow for smaller and faster devices and may have applications for quantum computing.

Ultrahigh-mobility semiconducting epitaxial graphene on silicon carbide (no public access, but article above contains link to PDF)