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Tough material, 1 atom thick, has scientists abuzz
Richmond Times Dispatch ^ | August 8, 2009 | ROBERT S. BOYD

Posted on 08/08/2009 10:39:58 PM PDT by Swordmaker

WASHINGTON -- Imagine a carbon sheet that's only one atom thick but is stronger than diamond and conducts electricity 100 times faster than the silicon in computer chips.

That's graphene, the latest wonder material coming out of science laboratories around the world. It is creating tremendous buzz among physicists, chemists and electronic engineers.

"It is the thinnest known material in the universe and the strongest ever measured," Andre Geim, a physicist at the University of Manchester, England, wrote in the June 19 issue of the journal Science.

"A few grams could cover a football field," Rod Ruoff, a graphene researcher at the University of Texas at Austin, said by e-mail. A gram is about one-thirtieth of an ounce.

Like diamond, graphene is pure carbon. It forms a six-sided mesh of atoms that, through an electron microscope, looks like a honeycomb or piece of chicken wire. Despite its strength, it's as flexible as plastic wrap and can be bent, folded or rolled up like a scroll.

(Excerpt) Read more at 2.timesdispatch.com ...


TOPICS: News/Current Events; Technical
KEYWORDS: graphene; science; scientists; stringtheory
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To: Talisker

Airplane skins, as well.


61 posted on 08/09/2009 10:27:33 PM PDT by Hoosier-Daddy ("It does no good to be a super power if you have to worry what the neighbors think." BuffaloJack)
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To: my_pointy_head_is_sharp

You guys are soooo two dimensional...


62 posted on 08/09/2009 10:32:00 PM PDT by Hoosier-Daddy ("It does no good to be a super power if you have to worry what the neighbors think." BuffaloJack)
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To: Hoosier-Daddy
Airplane skins, as well.

Didn't think of that. What would the drag be - virtually nil? As well as being able to "cut" into the air with the leading edge with virtually no drag at all, too.

63 posted on 08/09/2009 11:35:01 PM PDT by Talisker (When you find a turtle on top of a fence post, you can be damn sure it didn't get there on it's own.)
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To: Petronski

“I wonder if a sufficiently-large sheet of graphene could be folded in half more than nine times.”

-—<>-—<>-—<>-—<>-—<>-—

You earned an immediate belly-laugh from me for that one!


64 posted on 08/10/2009 12:12:49 PM PDT by AFPhys ((.Praying for President Bush, our troops, their families, and all my American neighbors..))
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