Found a way to replace silicon with carbon in the computers of the future

The Researchers were able to create a new computer system, operating without the use of silicon carbon-based. The advantages of computers based on the new transistor — their significantly increased productivity. The design of such computing systems will be significantly different from the usual, based on silicon. How it can work carbon the computers of the future?

An Engineer from the School of engineering and computer science Erik Jonsson (Erik Jonsson School of Engineering and Computer Science) the University of Texas at Dallas has created a new computer system, made solely on the basis of carbon, which in the future could replace silicon transistors in modern electronic devices.

Most of the research was conducted by Professor assistant electrical and computer technology Dr. Joseph S. Friedman (Joseph S. Friedman) even when he was a doctoral student at northwestern University.

The Result of his study was a computer-based system carbon-based spintronic logic. The results of the study were published on 5 June 2017 by Joseph Friedman and several of his co-authors in the online journal Nature Communications. Joseph Friedman was confident that such computer system will be less than that which is based on silicon transistors, and its performance will increase.

Modern electronic devices are based on transistors, which are tiny silicon structures that allow the negatively charged electrons pass through the silicon, forming an electric current. The transistors work as switches (switches), including turning off the current.

In addition to the ability to carry an electrical charge, electrons also possess another quality, specific to their magnetic properties, which is called spin. In recent years, engineers have explored ways to use the characteristics of the spin of electrons to create a new class of transistors and devices. This direction is called spintronics, or spin electronics.

Offered by Joseph Friedman of carbon spintronic switch functioning as a logical gateway, which is based on the basic principle of magnets: when an electric charge passes through a wire it creates a magnetic field that covers the wire.

In addition, the magnetic field around two-dimensional strip of carbon called graphene nanoline, and the impact on the current passing through the tape. Traditional computers based on silicon transistors can not reproduce this phenomenon. Instead, they are connected to each other by wires. The output of one transistor is connected by wire with the input of the next transistor, and thus transistors cascade connected.

In the design of spintronic circuits, proposed by Joseph Friedman, the electrons passing through carbon nanotubes — very thin wires made of carbon — create a magnetic field that influence the flow of current in the short graphene nanoline, providing a cascading logical gateways that are not connected physically.

Because the interaction between graphene belts is carried out by means of electromagnetic waves rather than physical movement of electrons, Joseph Friedman expects that the rate of this interaction will be higher and potentially will provide the clock frequency, which is calculated in terahertz. In addition, these carbon materials can be made smaller than transistors based on silicon, since there are no constraints that are due to the properties of silicon material.

It Should be noted that this concept is still at the stage of "drawing Board", but Joseph Friedman notes that the work on the prototype carbon cascaded spintronic computer system will be continued in the interdisciplinary research laboratory NanoSpinCompute, which he directs at the University of Texas at Dallas.

What prospects could bring the computing device clock frequency which is not expressed in gigahertz, terahertz (trillions of Hertz)?

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