Swift signals

University of California, Irvine scientists in The Henry Samueli School of Engineering have demonstrated for the first time that carbon nanotubes can route electrical signals on a chip faster than traditional copper or aluminium wires, at speeds of up to 10 GHz. The breakthrough could lead to faster and more efficient computers, and improved wireless network and cellular phone systems.

A nanotube is commonly made from carbon and consists of a graphite sheet wrapped into a cylinder only a few nanometres wide.

“Our prior research showed that nanotube transistors can operate at extremely high frequencies, but the connections between the transistors were made out of somewhat slower copper, thus forming a bottleneck for the electrical signals,” said Peter Burke, assistant professor of electrical engineering and computer science, and one of the researchers who developed the technology.

“In this technology we show that nanotubes can also quickly route electronic signals from one transistor to another, thus removing the bottleneck.”