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RADIO-FREQUENCY ELECTRONICS

Downscaling inductors with graphene

Nature Electronics volume 1, pages 6–7 (2018)Cite this article

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Spiral inductors that are made from intercalated multilayer graphene, and exploit the kinetic inductance of the material, could help deliver miniaturized radio-frequency integrated circuits.

Inductors are used in almost all radio-frequency (RF) integrated circuits for signal filtering and impedance tuning. In order to be compatible with semiconductor processing technologies, the design of on-chip RF inductors is typically based on planar spiral structures. To construct the spiral paths, which current has to flow through, copper and aluminium are commonly used. In these metals, inductance is only determined by Faraday’s law of induction, which is a function of the induced magnetic field and the structural design of the inductor. Such spiral structures have, however, intrinsic drawbacks, including weak magnetic coupling between turns and difficulties integrating a magnetic core, which results in a low inductance density and a large on-chip footprint. These limitations are set to become increasingly significant as the Internet of Things (IoT) develops, as this will require a tremendous number of miniaturized RF integrated circuits. Writing in Nature Electronics, Kaustav Banerjee and colleagues now show that on-chip RF spiral inductors that are made from intercalated multilayer graphene can offer high inductance density or reduced size dimensions1.

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Fig. 1: Spiral inductors made from bromine-intercalated multilayer graphene.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Micro and Nanotechnology Laboratory, Materials Research Laboratory, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, IL, USA

    Wen Huang & Xiuling Li

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  1. Wen Huang
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  2. Xiuling Li
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Correspondence to Xiuling Li.

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Huang, W., Li, X. Downscaling inductors with graphene. Nat Electron 1, 6–7 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41928-017-0015-7

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41928-017-0015-7

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