Communications of the ACM
Improving Electronics by Solving Nearly Century-Old Problem
A team of researchers has uncovered whether pink noise was generated on the surface of electrical conductors or inside their volumes, a question that had been unanswered for nearly a century.
Credit: Mansquito
Research into low-frequency electronic 1/f noise could lead to a continued downscaling of conventional electronic devices.
A team led by University of California, Riverside professor Alexander A. Balandin has solved whether 1/f noise was generated on the surface of electrical conductors or inside their volumes.
Also known as pink noise or flicker noise, 1/f noise is a signal or process with a power spectral density inversely proportional to the frequency.
The team used a set of multilayered graphene samples with the thickness continuously varied from about 15 atomic planes to a single layer of graphene to provide the answer to a nearly 100-year-old mystery.
"The key to this interesting result was that unlike in metal or semiconductor films, the thickness of graphene multilayers can be continuously and uniformly varied all the way down to a single atomic layer of graphene--the ultimate 'surface' of the film," Balandin says. "Thus, we were able to accomplish with multilayer graphene films something that researchers could not do with metal films in the last century."
Balandin notes that existing technology already permits many devices to essentially become surfaces. The results are key for proposed applications of graphene in analog circuits, communications, and sensors.
From UCR
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