Graphene could be used for high-efficiency digital storage

May 17, 2013

Recently, researchers from Spain have shown how graphene could facilitate the formation of a magnetic field under certain conditions.
What did the scientists do?
Researchers created a system composed of ruthenium-graphene sheet- tetracyano- p -quinodimethane (TCNQ). Here graphene is sandwiched b/w the layers ruthenium (Ru) and tetracyano- p -quinodimethane (TCNQ). Grapheme prevents TCNQ from bonding with the Ru base. Because Ru is a good electrical conductor, it has a lot of free and highly mobile electrons that move into the graphene layer, and then into the TCNQ layer.
The unique property of graphene to prevent bonding b/w two layers while allowing charge transfer b/w them allows the spins of electrons in the top layer to get aligned with those in the bottom. This alignment is called an antiferromagnetic coupling. Once all electrons have the same spin, the system is said to have a magnetic field. This is the first time graphene has been shown to play a role in the creation of a magnetic field.
What is Graphene?

Graphene is the name give to flat monolayer of carbon atoms tightly packed into a two-dimensional (2D) honeycomb lattice and is the basic building block for graphitic materials of all other dimensionality.
Potential Use: Enormous potential particularly in high-speed electronic devices.

How this research would help?

The current storage system use magnetic fields to store information on hard-drives.
The research on Ru-graphene arrangement which shows facilitating role of graphene in creation of magnetic field could find application in faster manipulation of digital information and their high-efficiency storage in computers.

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