Thermal AND Gate Using a Monolayer Graphene Nanoribbon

The first ever implementation of a thermal AND gate, which performs logic calculations with phonons, is presented using two identical thermal diodes composed of asymmetric graphene nanoribbons (GNRs). Employing molecular dynamics simulations, the characteristics of this AND gate are investigated and compared with those for an electrical AND gate. The thermal gate mechanism originates through thermal rectification due to asymmetric phonon boundary scattering in the two diodes, which is only effective at the nanoscale and at the temperatures much below the room temperature. Due to the high phonon velocity in graphene, the gate has a fast switching time of ≈100 ps.