This will greatly promote the development of the next generation of high-speed semiconductor and communication equipment, and its processing speed will greatly exceed the existing semiconductor and communication equipment.
DGIST announced that Professor Jae Eun Jang's team studied the high-frequency transmission characteristics of single-layer graphene in the Department of Information and Communication Engineering, developed high-performance high-frequency transmission lines, and improved the device concentration inside graphene.
This result shows that the characteristics of high-frequency transmission have been greatly improved, which can replace the metals used in high-speed semiconductor processing and is expected to be used as graphene transmission lines in the future.
Due to the high integration and high speed of semiconductor devices, the resistance of metal lines transmitting signals between devices increases geometrically, reaching the limit of allowable current density. In order to solve this problem, carbon-based nanostructures, such as graphene and carbon nanotubes, are considered as substitutes for existing metals and have attracted people's attention as the next generation of new materials.
However, graphene has a very thin hexagonal array of 0.3 nm carbon, and its conductivity is 100 times that of copper and its electron mobility is 100 times that of silicon. Therefore, it is considered as an electronic material, which can replace the existing metal and semiconductor materials. However, the device concentration of pure graphene is too low, which is 10 12 cm2, and it has nano-scale thin structure characteristics, resulting in high resistance of graphene.
In order to overcome these limitations, Jang's team conducted a study to improve the high-frequency transmission characteristics of graphene by increasing the concentration of internal devices. Through the combination of graphene and amorphous carbon, the research team increased the device concentration of graphene and enhanced the electrical properties of graphene. The high-frequency transmittance of graphene is increased to -8dB, which is comparable to that of metal nanowires with the size of several hundred nanometers.
The team also proved that the internal defects of graphene reduced the high-frequency transmission of graphene and developed a new stable doping technology to minimize the internal defects. This new doping technology increases the concentration of graphene devices by two times, 10 13cm2, and shows stable thermal and electrical properties.
The high-frequency graphene transmission line developed by Professor Zhang's research team has high signal transmission efficiency and stable operation, and can be applied to metal wiring processing in the existing semiconductor industry and the next generation integrated circuits.
Professor Jae Eun Jang of the Department of Information and Communication Engineering said: "In addition to equipment technology, transmission lines are also very important technologies in the field of semiconductor research. We have developed a core basic technology that can enhance the high-frequency transmission of graphene and can be used as the next generation transmission line. Due to the research results of experts in nano-engineering, electronic engineering, physics and other fields, we hope to apply graphene to high-frequency circuits such as MMIC and RFIC.
This research was supported by the Ministry of Science and Technology of Korea, the ICT Department and the basic research project of the National Research Fund of Korea, and was selected as the cover paper of advanced functional materials.