PERSPECTIVES

effective despite mutations in the activation tions is the same in both. Moreover, the genes less, the goal will always be the same—to
domain of the ABL protein. involved have the same function in both cases treat disease and benefit the patient.
Whereas translocations were first iden- (17). Thus, translocations are remarkably
tified in leukemias, lymphomas, and sarco- similar in function, though not necessarily in Reference and Notes
mas, they are now cropping up in many com- their frequency in individual cancers. 1. P. C. Nowell, D. A. Hungerford, Science 132, 1497 (1960).
2. J. Whang-Peng et al., Blood 32, 755 (1968).
mon epithelial tumors, prostate cancer, and It is likely that next-generation sequencing 3. T. Caspersson et al., Exp. Cell Res. 60, 315 (1970).
lung cancer, among others. Next-generation will reveal a much higher incidence of gene 4. A. T. Sumner et al., Nat. New Biol. 232, 31 (1971).
sequencing of leukemias and solid tumors has fusions in solid tumors. But this method is a 5. J. D. Rowley, Ann. Genet. 16, 109 (1973).
revealed a host of translocations (often small two-edged sword. It has identified numerous 6. J. D. Rowley, Nature 243, 290 (1973).
7. N. Heisterkamp et al., Nature 299, 747 (1982).
deletions or inversions) (15), some of which chromosomal translocations and deletions, 8. A. de Klein et al., Nature 300, 765 (1982).
involve genes that are targets of drugs already but which of these lead to altered gene func- 9. N. Heisterkamp et al., Nature 306, 239 (1983).
approved for therapy of other conditions. It tion and which are inconsequential? It will 10. J. Groffen et al., Cell 36, 93 (1984).
took only a few years from the discovery of be difficult to distinguish them in the future 11. E. Shtivelman et al., Nature 315, 550 (1985).
12. R. Dalla-Favera et al., Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A. 79,
the EML4-ALK translocation in lung cancer to without characterizing RNA from the tumors. 6497 (1982).
the development of the tyrosine kinase inhibi- A goal of personalized medicine is to iden- 13. R. Taub et al., Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A. 79, 7837
tor crizotinib (16), indicating that the discov- tify virtually all of the targetable genetic and (1982).
ery of new translocations may be more rapidly epigenetic abnormalities in a patient’s tumor 14. B. J. Druker et al., N. Engl. J. Med. 344, 1031 (2001).
15. B. Vogelstein et al., Science 339, 1546 (2013).
translatable to drug discovery. Although data through next-generation sequencing and other 16. A. T. Shaw et al., Lancet Oncol. 12, 1004 (2011).
on the occurrence and types of new transloca- technologies. To evolve targeted treatments 17. F. Mitelman et al., Nat. Rev. Cancer 7, 233 (2007).
tions, based on karyotype analysis, are more for cancer, we also need a more sophisticated

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frequently reported for hematologic cancers understanding of tumor-specific antigens and Acknowledgements: I gratefully acknowledge the thought-
ful criticisms of B. Drucker, K. Janssen, M. Le Beau, F. Mitel-
(75%) than for solid cancers (mainly epithe- chromatin modifications, for example. There man, Y. Nakamura, and D. Rowley.
lial) (25%), the proportion of malignancies likely will be many surprises along the way,
that have recurring chromosomal transloca- and paradigms will be discarded. Neverthe- 10.1126/science.1241318

PHYSICS

Contact with a layer of boron nitride provides

Critical Mass in Graphene a route to control the electronic properties of
graphene.
Michael S. Fuhrer

O
ne of the most striking properties The massless property of graphene’s tron and hole states exist at exactly zero
of graphene, a single-atom-thick electrons is due to the symmetry of the lat- energy, hence zero band gap and zero mass
layer of carbon, is that the electrons tice: The simplest repeat unit, the unit cell, (see the figure, panel B). But what happens
behave as if they have no mass. They move has two identical carbon atoms (see the if the two atoms in the unit cell are not iden-
at a constant velocity, regardless of their figure, panel A). There are thus two zero- tical? An extreme case is hexagonal boron
energy, much like photons, the more familiar energy states: one in which the electron nitride (hBN)—it too has a hexagonal lattice
massless particles of light. Special relativity resides on atom A, the other in which the structure analogous to that of graphene, but
tells us that a minimum energy E = 2m0c2 is electron resides on atom B. Both the elec- with one boron atom and one nitrogen atom
required to create a particle and antiparticle
of rest mass m0 (c is the speed of light; the
2 occurs because two particles are created).
Because photons have no rest mass, a pair of
photons can be created with energies all the
way down to zero energy. In a solid, the band
gap energy Eg = 2m0v2 is the energy required
to create an electron and hole (particle and
antiparticle), where m0 is the effective mass
and v is the Fermi velocity (typically less than
the speed of light by a factor of several hun-
dred). Thus, mass and band gap are intimately
related; no mass equates to no band gap, and Mass and band gap. (A) Graphene has two atoms in its unit cell, labeled A and B. (B) If A and B are identical
until now that was the end of the story in gra- (have the same energy), then graphene electrons have zero mass and a gapless dispersion relation [energy E
versus momentum (px, py)]. All electronic states exist equally on both atoms (denoted by magenta in dispersion
phene. On page 1427 of this issue, Hunt et al.
relation). (C) When the energy of atom A is raised relative to atom B, electron states primarily on atom A (red in
(1) show that electrons in graphene can gain a dispersion relation) have higher energy than electron states primarily on atom B (blue in dispersion relation)
mass under the right circumstances. and a band gap Eg is opened. If we examine electron states that reside primarily on atom A (red in dispersion
relation), we find a positive curvature of the energy versus momentum relation (red dashed curve) and thus
School of Physics, Monash University, Monash, 3800 Victo- positive mass for these states. (D) When the energy of atom A is lowered relative to atom B, states on atom A
ria, Australia. E-mail: [email protected] have an energy versus momentum relation with negative curvature (red dashed curve) and thus negative mass.

www.sciencemag.org SCIENCE VOL 340 21 JUNE 2013 1413

Published by AAAS
PERSPECTIVES

in the unit cell. Here, the electrons do have becomes zero (4). This intermediate mass- example, theory tells us that massless elec-
a mass and a large (>5 eV) band gap (2), but less region is gapless and therefore metal- trons will leak out through even the highest
too large to be technologically useful. lic. The presence of such metallic modes barrier. However, if the mass in graphene can
Hunt et al. show that hBN in contact with at the boundaries between semiconducting be controlled, electrons can be confined to
graphene can slightly alter the potential felt at regions of opposite-sign mass is a hallmark massless regions in graphene by surrounding
atom A versus atom B, and this effect is large of a topological phase. “Massive” graphene them with massive regions. This would allow
enough that the graphene electrons develop a displays much the same physics as topologi- the patterning of quantum dots, wires, and
mass, and hence a band gap (3). In this case cal insulators (5). other mesoscopic structures. Intriguingly,
the band gap is much smaller, about 30 meV, Even if the graphene layer is perfectly generating adjacent areas of opposite-sign
but large enough to alter graphene’s proper- aligned in angle to the underlying hBN lat- mass in graphene will create one-dimen-
ties in technologically interesting ways. tice, a small difference in the atomic spac- sional conductors along the boundary. These
One curious aspect of the sort of mass ing in the two materials means that they go in wires would be protected against backscat-
and band gap that can be created for mass- and out of registry over ~14 nm. Hunt et al. tering and could carry currents without dis-
less particles such as electrons in graphene use this property in their massive graphene sipation. The ability to control both the mag-
is that the mass can be positive or negative. on hBN to examine the Hofstadter butterfly nitude and sign of the mass of charge carriers
Consider then an arrangement of graphene (6), as have two other groups—one in bilayer is fundamentally new and is likely to spawn
on hBN that slightly raises the energy of an graphene on hBN (7), another in graphene unanticipated new phenomena.
electron on atom A relative to atom B such encapsulated above and below by hBN (8).
References
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panel C). Then likewise an arrangement that length scale determined by the repeating

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tive-mass region must go through an inter- to engineer its properties. Confining gra-
mediate region where its mass once again phene electrons is notoriously difficult; for 10.1126/science.1240317

ENGINEERING

Controlling the Polarity of Silicon Additional electrodes allow for the selection of
the charge-carrier type in silicon nanowire 3D
transistors and the creation of highly compact
Nanowire Transistors logic gates.

Thomas Ernst

E
ach generation of integrated circuit Complementary metal oxide semicon- semiconductor channel itself was changed
(IC) technology has led to new appli- ductor (CMOS) f ield-effect transistors to increase the current by introducing ger-
cations. The most recent advances (FETs) are the basic bricks of contempo- manium into silicon, and many alternative
have enabled noninvasive surgery, three- rary electronics. Developed industrially materials have been investigated, including
dimensional (3D) games and movies, and in the 1970s, they enabled the information ultrathin silicon films, “III-V” semiconduc-
intelligent cars, to name a few. A single chip technology boom because of their scalabil- tors such as indium gallium arsenide, and
can contain more than 1 billon elementary ity—the ability to meet higher performance carbon electronics, such as nanotubes and
devices, and this gain in complexity has been targets as their size decreased—and their graphene.
achieved by fabricating nanometer-scale extremely low power consumption. Several De Marchi et al., as well as other research
transistors used as switches or memories. physical limits were faced during this half- groups (2–4), are revisiting how to make
Recent experimental work by De Marchi et century history, but each was met by mak- “complementary” logic gates. This name
al. (1) describes changes to the structure of ing changes in how to make each component comes from the use of two types of tran-
one of the most basic bricks of ICs by control- represented by CMOS. The transistor gate sistors, n- and p-type, used in almost every
ling the type of conduction occurring in verti- electrode was changed from metal to silicon elementary logic gate. The opposite polar-
cally stacked silicon (Si) nanowire transistors and more recently back to metal. The gate ity of these transistors is usually determined
(see the figure, panels A and B), thus making oxide that provides the electrical insulation by the type of impurities (also called dop-
a programmable transistor. was changed from silica, which faced quan- ant atoms) that replace one Si atom out of
tum-tunneling limits as a barrier, to mate- a thousand or so in the crystalline lattice.
CEA/LETI, MINATEC, 17 Rue des Martyrs, 38054 Grenoble, rial with high dielectric constant κ (such Dopants are implanted in the crystal lat-
France. E-mail: [email protected] as hafnium-based oxide or silicate). The tice at high energy, and the semiconduc-

1414 21 JUNE 2013 VOL 340 SCIENCE www.sciencemag.org

Published by AAAS
Critical Mass in Graphene
Michael S. Fuhrer

Science 340 (6139), 1413-1414.

DOI: 10.1126/science.1240317

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