Posted on 01/23/2014 9:50:30 AM PST by Ernest_at_the_Beach
A collaboration of researchers at the U.S department of energy (DOE)’s Lawrence Berkeley national laboratory (Berkeley Lab) has discovered that sodium bismuthide can exist as a form of quantum matter called a three-dimensional topological Dirac semi-metal (3DTDS). This is the first experimental confirmation of 3D Dirac fermions in the interior or bulk of a material, a novel state that was only recently proposed by theorists.
(Excerpt) Read more at xbitlabs.com ...
one dimensional = nanotube (technically 3D, but still)
two dimensional = graphene
Three dimensional = ?
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The discovery of what is essentially a 3D version of graphene – the 2D sheets of carbon through which electrons race at many times the speed at which they move through silicon – promises exciting new things to come for the high-tech industry, including much faster transistors and far more compact storage devices.
See just above.
ping
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I should explain my absence for quite awhile.
Due to vision issues I suspended my typo filled comments, ...
Not been reading much either.
But now have reworked systems with Korora 20 and am a heavy user of the zoom accessibility feature. Please excuse any typos.
Might be around a bit more,.
Imagine a marriage of graphene and 3D printing. I was reading about this just this week. Its already being worked on.
Yes, they are all three dimensional. But their construction/use is not. Nanotubes are essentially a rolled cylinder of graphene, but their electrical properties turn graphene’s 2-dimensional electrical properties into a single dimension (down the axis). The new materials this article describes maintain the same electromagnetic properties as a single sheet of graphene, but in a third dimension, allowing for much thicker materials, giving you much more volume. The issue with graphene is that when stacked, the special properties diminish and are no longer as useful.
Nice to see you back, I wondered where you got to!
Being able to have a material with the characteristics of graphene but can be thicker than graphene is exciting. It still doesn't make one of the dimensions of graphene not exist.
Yes, GRAPHENE physically has 3 dimensions.
The electrical USE of graphene has 2 dimensions.
No matter what you do, electrons only move within the graphene lattice in two directions. I’m not describing graphene as a 2-dimensional structure, I am describing its use in 2 dimensions, because electrons can’t move in that third dimension to do anything useful. When you start layering graphene in order to gain that third dimension electrically, you lose the special properties that make the single layer so useful electrically. Different orientations lose effectiveness at different rates, but you end up with pencil lead. Which, as we know, is not very conductive. (I’m not confusing you by calling it ‘lead’, am I?) But what makes sodium bismuthide so special is it has that third dimension (electrically) that maintains those special properties despite having multiple layers.
Imagine you have a pile of 2x2 flat-top lego blocks. You can place them on a base sheet, but you can’t stack them on top of each other. Yes, each lego block has 3 sides, but your constructed piece can only be built and added on to in 2 dimensions.
You’re in my prayers Ernest...
I’m still trying to figure out how to milk a bismuth.
Very carefully, or they will kick you in the head.
5.56mm
With that sort of flexibility in terms our entire spacetime bubble could be said to be only two dimensional, or even one dimensional. Single atoms are three dimensional ... unless in a quantum super position.
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