By studying the ‘noise’ in graphene nanoribbons—one-dimensional strips of graphene with nanometer-scale widths – Berkeley Lab researchers at the Molecular Foundry are moving toward the fabrication of logic switching devices, which are the basis for computation units in today’s computer chips.

The energy bands of complex particles known as plasmarons have been seen for the first time by scientists working with graphene at the Advanced Light Source. Their discovery may hasten the day when these crystalline sheets of carbon just one atom thick can be used to build ultrafast computers and other electronic, photonic, and plasmonic devices on the nanoscale.

A Berkeley Lab scientist was a key member of a team that developed a unique new technique for integrating high performance micro-sized supercapacitors into a variety of portable electronic devices through common microfabrication techniques. Featuring high power densities and rapid-fire cycle times, these new supercapacitors have the potential to substantially boost the performance and longevity of portable electric energy storage devices.

The “Discovery” track of Berkeley Lab’s Laboratory Directed Research and Development proposal review encourages bold, highly innovative concepts with strong potential for impact in their fields, independent of divisional programs and lab-wide initiatives. The winning proposals for 2010 are described in a five-part series, concluding with this look at the search for industrial solutions to producing band-gap graphene structures with nanoscale resolution.

Berkeley Lab researchers have shown that selective placement of strain can alter the electronic phase and its spatial arrangement in correlated electron materials, a class of materials that can display properties such as colossal magnetoresistance and high-temperature superconductivity.

The electron mobility and other unique features of graphene hold great promise for nanoscale electronics and photonics, but graphene has no bandgap. Now Berkeley Lab researchers have engineered a bandgap in bilayer graphene that can be precisely controlled from 0 to .25 electron volts at room temperature, making possible new kinds of nanotransistors and nanoscale optical devices in the infrared range.

Berkeley Lab researchers have successfully demonstrated that electric fields can be used as ON/OFF switches in doped multiferroic films, a development that holds promise for future magnetic data storage and spintronic devices.