A team of researchers from the University of Manchester demonstrate how graphene could be encapsulated, sandwiching two sheets of graphene with another two-dimensional material, boron nitride. The four-layered structure aims to replace the silicon chip in computers.
Because there are two layers of graphene completely surrounded by the boron nitride, this has allowed the researchers for the first time to observe how graphene behaves when unaffected by the environment. Leonid Ponomarenko, the leading author on the paper, said, "Creating the multi-layer structure has allowed us to isolate graphene from negative influence of the environment and control graphene's electronic properties in a way it was impossible before."
"So far people have never seen graphene as an insulator unless it has been purposefully damaged, but here high-quality graphene becomes an insulator for the first time." The two layers of boron nitrate are used not only to separate two graphene layers but also to see how graphene reacts when it is completely encapsulated by another material.
"Leaving the new physics we report aside, technologically important is our demonstration that graphene encapsulated within boron nitride offers the best and most advanced platform for future graphene electronics. It solves several nasty issues about graphene's stability and quality that were hanging for long time as dark clouds over the future road for graphene electronics. "We did this on a small scale but the experience shows that everything with graphene can be scaled up." "It could be only a matter of several months before we have encapsulated graphene transistors with characteristics better than previously demonstrated."
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