I.B.M.'s 000-M239 research has been supported by a more modest effort financed by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, the Pentagon office that supports futuristic science and technology. (Graphene is being explored as a substitute for materials like gallium arsenide, used in high-frequency military communications equipment.
That has not tempered the industry's excitement over potential applications for the material. In Europe and Asia, government and corporate investments are running far in advance of those in the United States, said Phaedon Avouris, an I.B.M. 000-M239 chemical physicist who is a leader of the company's research effort.
"Outside the U.S. there is a lot of interest," he said.
But it is not yet a candidate to replace today's CMOS transistors, the basis for the microprocessors and computer memories in consumer electronics systems. Graphene does not have the same physical properties as semiconducting materials and cannot be used to completely switch on and off in the way that logic transistors are meant to do.
Both the European Union and South Korea have recently started $1.5 billion efforts to build industrial-scale efforts using graphene as a next-generation display material, he said. Singapore has also recently started a major investment in the material.
That has not tempered the industry's excitement over potential applications for the material. In Europe and Asia, government and corporate investments are running far in advance of those in the United States, said Phaedon Avouris, an I.B.M. 000-M239 chemical physicist who is a leader of the company's research effort.
"Outside the U.S. there is a lot of interest," he said.
But it is not yet a candidate to replace today's CMOS transistors, the basis for the microprocessors and computer memories in consumer electronics systems. Graphene does not have the same physical properties as semiconducting materials and cannot be used to completely switch on and off in the way that logic transistors are meant to do.
Both the European Union and South Korea have recently started $1.5 billion efforts to build industrial-scale efforts using graphene as a next-generation display material, he said. Singapore has also recently started a major investment in the material.
