Self-Cooling Graphene Could Mean Greener Devices

Graphene has been given the spin as a material with superpowers that could allow it to replace silicon in processors or become a key part of fast-charging batteries. Now a team of researchers at Illinois University in the US claims that its powers could stretch into the green IT world.

The team has discovered that graphene may be a self-cooling material that could result in the production of more efficient and energy-saving devices.

Probing The Heat Barrier

If the Illinois study is correct, the problem that has brought the reduction in silicon chip sizes to a halt could be overcome by graphene. As chip circuitry is reduced in scale, heat production becomes a problem that threatens to fry the chip before it can be tested. This has resulted in Intel, AMD and others looking at multicore processors as a way to increase chip speeds while reducing heat production and efficiency.

A report from the university stated, “With the first observation of thermoelectric effects at graphene contacts, University of Illinois researchers found that graphene transistors have a nanoscale cooling effect that reduces their temperature.”

Graphene is basically a one-atom thick sheet of carbon and, as the report claimed, chips made from graphene may prove to be faster and able to run at much lower power. The problem with silicon chips is that they usually require fans or water-cooling housings to keep the temperature under control.

The problem for the researchers is that they are working at the atomic level and this makes it very difficult to monitor what precisely is happening. The team is using an atomic force microscope tip as a temperature probe to measure the working temperatures (pictured).

The research could result in future probes being pointed at molybdenite which is being hailed by Swiss researchers as having an energy efficiency greater than graphene.