Tomás Palacios. Researcher at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. The English teenager leads a team dedicated to graphene, a material on which to build the electronics of the future.
Tomás Palacios (Jaén, 1978) staggered everyone fifty attendees decided to go to the conference he gave recently in Madrid, in the courses organized in the Campus Party Europe. The team coached since 2006 at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) seems destined to revolutionize electronics. Palacios blushes when you mention various online forums where he foresees a future Nobel in Physics, a shyness disappears when talking about as unknown as imprescincibles items in computing the future: the graphene and gallium nitride. The researcher received the award last year that the National Science Foundation USA grants to young researchers.
Some feel that their work will end the silicon chip, resulting in a new era in electronics. "They exaggerate?
A little. We will always have silicon in electronics, such as cement will always be in the building. What we are going to do is to incorporate materials that provide new possibilities, to build the electronics of the future.
What are these materials?
My team works with the graphene and the gallium nitride, which is used in the transistors used in cell phones and blue LEDs and lasers. That is, anyone with a PlayStation 3 with a Blu-ray has a gallium nitride device at home.
What does the graphene electronics?
Graphene is obtained from the graphite layer is formed by a carbon atom and is the thinnest material we know. However, it is also the strongest, five times more than steel. In addition, their electronic properties are much better than any other known material. Basically, graphite, which is the material we have in the mines of pencils, is made up of many layers of graphene. The breakthrough that made possible the revolution of graphene came in 2004 at the University of Manchester, when he managed to isolate one of these layers of graphene from graphite.
What is its practical usefulness?
My group is working on three applications. The first is electronic. In graphene transistors can be fabricated with the potential to be ten to hundred times faster than silicon. It is also a single layer of carbon atoms, which means that whatever happens on the surface will affect the properties of graphene. It is therefore a very good material for sensors, detection of molecules, pollution, viruses, etc. My group is working on biosensors. Finally, it is a transparent and conductive material, so that can be used for solar cells.
Why is it so unknown material?
was studied for 50 years, but until recently it was believed six impossible to isolate. When did we start to do experiments. What makes my group within the department of electrical engineering at MIT is trying to find applications for this new material, such as the manufacture of transistors.
Do graphene chips may increase the speed of supercomputers?
That is the hope of many companies. There are companies like IBM and Intel who are interested in this material. My opinion is that this application will be one of the last we see for the graphene, since it is one of the most difficult. The first, which we expected at the beginning of next year, metal is used as transparent for solar panels, mobile phones and monitors. On devices with a flat screen you need a material that is conductive and transparent. What is used now is the Indian, a very expensive item. So alternatives are sought.
Intel conducts its own studies with graphene. Do you share their knowledge with them?
Some projects are working independently, but there are a lot of collaboration between companies and universities. Part of my funding to study the graphene from a consortium of electronics where companies like IBM or Intel.
Once we know the potential of graphene, why not sell chips that comprise it?
Until very recently it was very graphene as hard to get enough to make it viable from a business perspective. The method that was discovered is what is called method tape. Basically, he took a piece of graphite consists of many layers of graphene, was sticking tape, and peel it off, if you were lucky, a graphene layer had been adhered to. That's what physicists have used in recent years to investigate, but of course, is not viable from a business perspective. This has been one of the brakes, but recently several groups have found ways to obtain greater amounts of graphene, which opens the door to new applications. Another brake has been finding the ideal application of graphene. My group believes that this application are transistors, biosensors and transparent metals.
When we graphene chips in computers?
We'll have monitors graphene rather than chips. For the latter will spend at least ten years. Graphene chips will be used in two ways: in the transistors and the metal used to connect them. In my opinion, this second option will come sooner than the first. In the laboratory we're already making chips for mobile, which will be in the market two or three years and allow both the speed of the Internet that can reach the telephone and wireless transmission speeds are much higher. Not everything in the computer are microprocessors.
Would you return to Spain for further research?
can never say anything outright, but today I am very happy at MIT. In the U.S. there are many facilities for a relatively young scientist like me has its own task force and independence to work on what you want.
Mario Pedraza
Solid State Electronics Section 2
Solid State Electronics Section 2
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