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Phoenix666 [soylentnews.org] writes:

Now researchers at the Michigan Technological University (MTU) have combined these two nanomaterials [ieee.org] to tackle a far more difficult application field: electronics. Specifically, the researchers have created digital switches by making a sandwich of carbon nanotubes and graphene.
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In research published in the journal Scientific Reports, the MTU researchers exfoliated the graphene and modified its surface so that it was made of small holes. The researchers then coaxed the carbon nanotubes to grow out of these holes.
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The electrons are able to move smoothly along the graphene but when they come up to the hair-like sprouts of boron nitride carbon nanotubes they are slowed way down. It is at these points of where the graphene meets the carbon nanotubes, known as heterojunctions, that digital switches are made possible.
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In addition to having a relatively high switch ratio compared to current graphene switches, the hybrid material also avoids the issue of electron scattering in which electrons are dispersed in directions you don’t want them to go. The hybrid material gets around this issue because the two materials that make it up have the same atomic arrangement pattern.

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