               Atomical

ly Thin Carbon::
From Revolutionary Electronics
to the Core of Neutron Stars
Antonio H. Castro Neto

Aspen Center for Physics

June, 2008
Our collaborators around the world

Kostya Novoselov, Manchester, U.K.

Fernando
Joao Francisco
Marcos
Lopes
Johan
Chiung-Yuan
Javier
Sols,
Shuyundos
Alessandra
Eduardo
Tobias
Nuno
Caio
Eun-AhNilsson,
Valeri
Vitor
BrunoPimenta,
Silvia
Eduardo Sabio,
Univ.
Peres,Guinea,
Santos,
Lewenkopf,
Stauber,
Castro, Lin,
ICMM
Complutense
Leiden
Pereira,
Zhou,
Kotov,
Lanzara,
Kim,
Viola,
Uchoa,
Univ. UFMG
Univ.
ICMM
NCTU
Univ.
Stanford
Univ.
Berkeley
Mucciolo,BU
BU
BU
UERJ
Minho Porto
Berkeley
Minho
Porto
UCF
The
Spain
Portugal
Spain
Spain
Brazil
Netherlands
Taiwan
Portugal
USA
Portugal
USA
USA
Brazil
USA

Andre Geim, Manchester, U.K.

 Andre Geim Sir Michael Berry

The Ig Nobel Prizes honor

achievements that first make people
laugh, and then make them think. The
prizes are intended to celebrate the
unusual, honor the imaginative -- and
spur people's interest in science,
medicine,and technology.
 Why geckos can walk
upside down on a glass
window ?
Gecko tape
Why carbon ? The bad and the ugly
The good and beautiful

Diamond
Graphite

Beauty and the Beast

C20

C60
Fullerenes or Buckyballs
zero dimensional

C540
 The making1. of a fullerene
Take graphene

3. Add a few more!

2. Add a pentagon
 Carbon
Nanotubes:
one dimensional
The making of carbon nanotubes
 Beautiful… and useful !




 Graphite
Stacked graphene!
 The English had a monopoly on the production
ofIn
The
ancient times “pencils" consisted of a thin
pencils.
"lead" pencil (which contains
Fun facts about
rod composed of soft lead, and were used
no lead) was invented in 1564 when a huge
Inmostly
1795, by artists.
Nicholas
Graphite Jacques
(named Conte
for (a French
the Greek word
graphite
officerpencils
Graphene mine ! to make,
is easy was
in Napoleon's
meaning
discovered
army) was
"to write")
in
patented Borrowdale,
the modern
chemically
Cumbria,
method England.
of kiln-firing They were
powdered called
graphite lead
with word
The word
analyzed pencil
in 1779comes
by from
K.W. the Latin
Scheele and
pencils by mistake.
but hard to find !!!
clay to make graphite rods for pencils. By
"penicillus,"
named which
in 1789 bymeans "little tail" - the
A.G.toWerner.
varying the ratio of graphite clay, the
name of the tiny brush that ancient Romans
hardness of the graphite can also vary.
used as a writing instrument.
5µ m
From 1564 to 2004 !
Recipe for making a graphene transistor
by Philip Kim
 Plus some nanotechnology…

2µ m

optical image Au contacts

SEM image
design SiO2

contacts and mesa

Si graphite
What is so special about graphene ?

Normal conductor Fermions

2
p
E ( p) =
2m
Graphene

Dirac fermions
E ( p) = ± v p
But how ???
 Quantum Mechanics

Wave-particle duality

particle wave
Interference
Dirac fermions are
the final result!
What is the proof that Dirac fermions exist in graphene?
 QHE papers appear on Nature
Novoselov et al.. appears on Science
 E ( p) = ± v p
Electrons propagate just as light does
v = c / 300
Relativity at very low speed of light”

Weirdness of Quantum Physics

plus Relativity!
Collision with a barrier
Classical
R=1
Quantum
R<1,T<1
R+T=1

Relativistic + Quantum
T=1
 Atomic Physics
e2 1
V (r ) = − Z Coulomb law
ε0 r

Fine structure constant

ε2
1
a = = 0.007297352536(5) ≈
e0 hχ 137
 Atomic Physics

1
Ζ < ≈ 137 Z
Z α

1 Overcritical
Ζ > ≈ 137 Atom
α
Z
Positron emission
 Some interesting consequences
Anthropic principle argues that the value of the fine-structure constant is
what it is because stable matter and therefore life and intelligent beings
could not exist if the value were anything else. For instance, were the
fine structure constant to change by 4%, carbon would no longer be
produced in stellar fusion. If the fine structure constant were greater than
0.1, fusion would no longer occur in stars.

ε 2
a = = 0.007297352536(5)
e0 hχ
avy ion collisions neutron stars
 2
ε
But in aΓ = ≈2
e0 hϖ
graphene
Atoms become overcritical easily Ζ >
1
≈ 0.5
αΓ
Z
 V Use a scanning tunneling
microscope,for a “high-
I energy experiment

Resonances
indicate dI
dI
dV
dV
emission of
anti-particles
V
V
 Graphene is a soft material
“Relativistic” particles propagate
in curved space

+
 Now …
Let us go back
to Earth

What about
applications ?
 32.5 mm

Tukwila (Intel)

21.5 mm
February 2008
2 billion transistors
speed: 2 GHz
65 nm transistors
Miniaturization
Graphene down Quantum
to 1 nm : a few benzene rings
Dots
The rise of graphene… Much more to come ….