Scientists slice graphite into atom-thick sheets

The Register (U.K.) ^ | October 21, 2004 | Lucy Sherriff

[Stoat]

Scientists slice graphite into atom-thick sheets

By Lucy Sherriff

Published Thursday 21st October 2004 23:29 GMT

An international team of scientists has made a new material just one atom thick, by extracting a single plane of carbon from a graphite crystal. Known as graphene, the new fabric effectively exists in just two dimensions, and could pave the way for computers built from single molecules.

In the latest edition of Science, published tomorrow, the scientists from Manchester University and Chernogolovka, Russia, explain that the atomic sheet is a fullerene molecule. Fullerenes are a class of carbon molecules discovered in the last twenty years. The first, the famous football-shaped Carbon-60 molecule, was named for architect Buckminster Fuller, because of its resemblance to his geodesic dome structures.

The sheet of atoms is highly flexible, stable and strong and demonstrates remarkable conductivity. Manchester University’s Professor Andre Geim says that qualities like this have been found so far only in nanotubes. "As carbon nanotubes are basically made from rolled-up narrow stripes of graphene, any of the thousands of applications currently considered for nanotubes renowned for their unique properties can also apply to graphene itself," he said.

Although the samples they have studied are mere microns across, the researchers found that the electrons will travel across the material without scattering over submicron distances – ideal for building very fast switching transistors. The researchers have even managed to demonstrate an ambipolar field effect transistor (a transistor commonly used to amplify a weak signal, such as a wireless signal) that works under ambient conditions.

Geim adds that there is some way to go still before the material can legitimately be considered the next big thing. Currently, the samples are tens of microns across, but for real engineering, the scientist says wafers will need to be a few inches in size.

However, Dr. Novoselov, Geim’s counterpart at Chernogolovka, is optimistic: "Only ten years ago carbon nanotubes were less than a micron long. Now, scientists can make nanotubes several centimetres long, and similar progress can reasonably be expected for carbon nanofabric too."

[Hank Rearden]

No matter what the article says, Al Gore invented this.

[BCrago66]

I did that in my kitchen last week, without bragging about it.

[william clark]

Well, that's just fine.

[GeronL]

before or after you built the atom smasher from washing machine parts?

[shibumi]

So, back-engineered alien UFO technology surfaces again!

[Gondring]

Or the Toynbee Convector?

Seriously, if they can figure out how to bond this (...is it warpable, can it be woven instead of just bonding to a substrate?), then perhaps we can start to look seriously at the Space Elevator. Now starting THAT project would be a worthy goal for W in his second term.

[clee1]

and could pave the way for computers built from single molecules.

That would sure make the keyboard impossible to use.

[The Red Zone]

Imagine trying to handle one of those.

[GeronL]

I doubt the planning of that would even start in 4 years. Heck, they haven't even studied the idea enough and won't over the next 4.

[broadsword]

You just have to develop liiiiitle tiiiiiny fingertips.

[broadsword]

...then perhaps we can start to look seriously at the Space Elevator. Now starting THAT project would be a worthy goal for W in his second term.

That would just be another high tech thingy for the produce-nothing, worth-nothing, Muslim terrorists to blow up.

[endthematrix]

Re: ambipolar field effect transistor qualities

S. J. Tans, R. M. Verschueren, and C. Dekker, “Room temperature tran-sistor based on a single carbon nanotube,” Nature, vol. 393, pp. 49–52,1998.

[Gondring]

I don't think the response to terrorism is to stop progress. Perhaps such a target would be exactly what they'd want to hit, but we Americans don't stop living just because they'd want to kill us, do we?

[Gondring]

Actually, a rather reasonable draft plan has been compiled, and though this plan wouldn't be the final form, a real effort toward an elevator could initiated at any time. (See, for example, the July 2004 cover article of that leftie science rag Discover.) Of course, the actual elevator wouldn't be completed in 4 years.

[Gondring]

(Weren't there a couple of giant Buddhist statues in Afghanistan? What happened to them?)

Some folks think there were three.

[Lurking2Long]

I could do the same thing with a number 3 pencil...

[PBRSTREETGANG]

Boy, that could cause a really nasty "paper cut".

[broadsword]

I don't think the response to terrorism is to stop progress.

Of course not.

Perhaps such a target would be exactly what they'd want to hit, but we Americans don't stop living just because they'd want to kill us, do we?

No, my friend. The idea is to kill the seventh-century savages BEFORE they kill us.

BTW: I would love to see that space elevator before I die. I have always thought it an intriguing idea.

[Quix]

Sounds like we're approaching ET cleverness in such constructions.

I think one or more of the filmy, foily artifacts from more than a crash or there was analyzed to find an odd mix of elements bonded together in a mystifying layering wherein each element was only an atom or so thick in it's layer.