  The past decade has seen rapid growth in the research area of graphene and
its application to novel electronics. With Moore's law beginning to plateau,
the need for post-silicon technology in industry is becoming more apparent.
Moreover, existing technology is insufficient for implementing terahertz
detectors and receivers, which are required for a number of applications
including medical imaging and security scanning. Graphene is considered to be a
key potential candidate for replacing silicon in existing CMOS technology as
well as realizing field effect transistors for terahertz detection, due to its
remarkable electronic properties, with observed electronic mobilities reaching
up to $2 \times 10^5$ cm$^2$ V$^{-1}$ s$^{-1}$ in suspended graphene samples.
This report reviews the physics and electronic properties of graphene in the
context of graphene transistor implementations. Common techniques used to
synthesize graphene, such as mechanical exfoliation, chemical vapor deposition,
and epitaxial growth are reviewed and compared. One of the challenges
associated with realizing graphene transistors is that graphene is
semimetallic, with a zero bandgap, which is troublesome in the context of
digital electronics applications. Thus, the report also reviews different ways
of opening a bandgap in graphene by using bilayer graphene and graphene
nanoribbons. The basic operation of a conventional field effect transistor is
explained and key figures of merit used in the literature are extracted.
Finally, a review of some examples of state-of-the-art graphene field effect
transistors is presented, with particular focus on monolayer graphene, bilayer
graphene, and graphene nanoribbons.
