Graphene used to create triple-mode transistor

Graphene is very strong, nearly transparent and conducts electricity very well. But another key property is ambipolarity, graphene's ability to switch between using positive and negative carriers on the fly depending on the input signal. Traditional silicon transistors usually use one or the other type of carrier, which is determined during fabrication.

A three-terminal single-transistor amplifier made of graphene can be changed during operation to any of three modes at any time using carriers that are positive, negative or both, providing opportunities that are not possible with traditional single-transistor architectures, said Kartik Mohanram, an assistant professor of electrical and computer engineering at Rice. He collaborated on the research with Alexander Balandin, a professor of electrical engineering at the University of California, Riverside, and their students Xuebei Yang (at Rice) and Guanxiong Liu (at Riverside).