Quantum Times

'White graphene' to the rescue

Hexagonal boron nitride sheets may help graphene supplant siliconWhat researchers might call "white graphene" may be the perfect sidekick for the real thing as a new era unfolds in nanoscale electronics.But single-atom-thick layers of hexagonal boron nitride (h-BN), the material under intense study at Rice University's world-class Department of Mechanical Engineering and Materials Science, are likely to find some macro applications as well.Researchers in the lab of Pulickel Ajayan, Rice's Benjamin M. and Mary Greenwood Anderson Professor in Mechanical Engineering and Materials Science and of chemistry, have figured out how to make sheets of h-BN, which could turn out to be the complementary apple to graphene's orange.The results were reported last week in the online journal Nano Letters.Graphene, touted as a possible successor to silicon in microelectronics applications, is the new darling of research labs that hope to take advantage of its superb electronic properties.Hexagonal boron nitride, on th

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