Oct 24 2011
Scientists from across the globe will meet next week at the Third International Symposium on the Science and Technology of Epitaxial Graphene. The conference is being held from October 24-27, 2011 at the Casa Monica Hotel in St. Augustine, Florida. The event is hosted by the Materials Research Science and Engineering Center at the Georgia Institute of Technology.
"This conference brings together world leaders in the field of graphene that is grown in silicon carbide, also known as epitaxial graphene," said Walt de Heer, Regents' Professor in the School of Physics at Georgia Tech and chair of the symposium. "Epitaxial graphene is considered to be one of the most promising new materials for electronics. In particular, we hope to develop epitaxial graphene based electronics that can outperform silicon in speed, heat and in the density of devices."
More than 100 researchers are expected to attend the symposium, which brings together leaders in epitaxial graphene research from the United States, Europe, Japan and Russia. They'll discuss the latest strategies to produce graphene, as well as new ways to measure its properties. There will be an emphasis at the conference on methods to produce graphene nanostructures, graphene chemistry, electronic transport properties and spintronics. They will also talk about theories underlying the production and properties of graphene.
So far, the substance has shown great promise in being a material that can conduct electricity with little resistance and without many of the problems that carbon nanotubes have exhibited, such as difficulties with placing them and building them into wires. In addition, research suggests that epitaxial graphene may offer much greater speed and performance over silicon.