New Wonder Material, One-Atom Thick, Has Scientists Abuzz

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Scientists have discovered a new material that is only one atom thick, is stronger than diamond and conducts electricity 100 times better than silicon used in current computer chips. Wait, this stuff has scientist “abuzz” and comes in grams, what are we talking about again? Thanks to Justin Carlett for the link.

"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," said Rod Ruoff , a graphene researcher at the University of Texas, Austin , in an e-mail.
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That was my nickname in high school "Adam Thick"

I keed.

Sounds like that could revolutionize many different products.
 
It'll definitely make condoms better. Especially for those girls who been around the block. ;)
 
Graphene has been reported on many times before, even here at [H]. Why is this post titled like it is brand new and unheard of, again?
 
Kristofff said:
Graphene has been reported on many times before, even here at [H]. Why is this post titled like it is brand new and unheard of, again?
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I have forwarded your question to the AUTHOR of the article at McClatchy newspapers. Surely he will consult the [H] forums before he dares write another article on the subject.

In turn, we will check all of our news content with YOU first so that you can sign off on it before we post it for other readers (that might not have seen this news item) :rolleyes:
 
Kristofff said:
Graphene has been reported on many times before, even here at [H]. Why is this post titled like it is brand new and unheard of, again?
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My thoughts exactly. The stuff is pretty old according to wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graphene#History_and_experimental_discovery Most of us already have some in the form of graphite (remember the ol' pencil tricks?). Heck, even the article itself says that graphene itself isn't new:

Replacing silicon, the basic electronic material in computer chips, however, "is a long way off . . . far beyond the horizon," said Geim, who first discovered how to produce graphene five years ago.
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The only new development the article mentions is that the figured out a better way to produce, which is still cool and all.
 
The article make it sound like silicon is to graphene as oil is to renewable energy. Silicon's 40-year multibillion dollar foothold in the electronics market will make it extra harder for graphene to get the recognition and research it deserves.

Tech news need to keep reminding us that there's something better out there so an idea won't die or become overshadowed by the present.
 
kllrnohj said:
The only new development the article mentions is that the figured out a better way to produce, which is still cool and all.
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Which is why it gets reported on. When there is something new we post on it. The headline of this article belongs to the author of the article, we didn't change the headline.

The last time we reported on graphene was four months ago when MIT built an experimental graphene frequency multiplier. We reported on that because it was another technology advancement.

Azhar said:
Tech news need to keep reminding us that there's something better out there so an idea won't die or become overshadowed by the present.
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Exactly
 
There has been a lot of work on this material, all over the world, for years, the DoE has had a lot of research ongoing with it for many applications.

DoE at ORNL has a Carbon Materials Technology group, of which I am a part, several Nuclear groups and other tech groups who have exploited the properties of graphene. Carbon fiber also exploits it.

Guess the article is "new" spin on old tech.
 
Steve said:
I have forwarded your question to the AUTHOR of the article at McClatchy newspapers. Surely he will consult the [H] forums before he dares write another article on the subject.

In turn, we will check all of our news content with YOU first so that you can sign off on it before we post it for other readers (that might not have seen this news item) :rolleyes:
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I was unaware that you were incapable of thinking up your own post titles. I apologize.
 
Kristofff said:
I was unaware that you were incapable of thinking up your own post titles. I apologize.
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You are pushing your luck.

I have read back through the last 30-40 posts you have made and almost all of them are profanity laced rants, complaints or know-it-all tirades against other forum members. Your recent forced vacation from the forums hasn't seemed to help either.

If you do not like the thread, do not post in it. Move on to one you like. If you don't like the news forum, move on to another one.

It is as simple as that.
 
Steve said:
You are pushing your luck.

I have read back through the last 30-40 posts you have made and almost all of them are profanity laced rants, complaints or know-it-all tirades against other forum members. Your recent forced vacation from the forums hasn't seemed to help either.

If you do not like the thread, do not post in it. Move on to one you like. If you don't like the news forum, move on to another one.

It is as simple as that.
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Criticism noted.
 
So here's the kicker: how long until this hits production at scale? Seriously, we hear about such breakthroughs on an almost-daily basis. It might be solar cell efficiency, or fuel cell development, or room-temperature superconductors, or quantum computing, or cold fusion, or carbon nanotubes, but it's always "3-5 years from production" or "10-20 years away from market."

Call me when it gets used in a real product.
 
Kristofff said:
Graphene has been reported on many times before, even here at [H]. Why is this post titled like it is brand new and unheard of, again?
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Exactly what I was wondering. Most of us use it every day...

From the article:


Graphite, the lead in a pencil, is made of stacks of graphene layers. Although each individual layer is tough, the bonds between them are weak, so they slip off easily and leave a dark mark when you write.
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Graphene has been in pencils for a long time now.
 
Mohonri said:
So here's the kicker: how long until this hits production at scale? Seriously, we hear about such breakthroughs on an almost-daily basis. It might be solar cell efficiency, or fuel cell development, or room-temperature superconductors, or quantum computing, or cold fusion, or carbon nanotubes, but it's always "3-5 years from production" or "10-20 years away from market."

Call me when it gets used in a real product.
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It's incremental discoveries like this that push technology forward nowadays.

Given the amount of noise generated when, say, a laptop battery has an increased risk of overheating, you might cut researchers a little slack for proceeding slowly with an uproven technology.

I would further recommend that you stay away from any discussion of pure theoretical research (e.g. LHC). Without a direct application, you will likely have a stroke.
 
Maybe it took the author 5 years to write the article. The "new" properties were discovered back then. :p
 
Steve said:
You are pushing your luck.

I have read back through the last 30-40 posts you have made and almost all of them are profanity laced rants, complaints or know-it-all tirades against other forum members. Your recent forced vacation from the forums hasn't seemed to help either.

If you do not like the thread, do not post in it. Move on to one you like. If you don't like the news forum, move on to another one.

It is as simple as that.
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Thank you for noticing
 
Anyway the article on yahoo was mostly fluff, the only really news comes at the end of the article.

"Recently, however, scientists have discovered a more efficient way to produce graphene on an underlying base of copper, nickel or silicon, which subsequently is etched away.

"There has been spectacular progress in the last two or three months," Geim reported in the journal Science. "Challenges that looked so daunting just two years ago have suddenly shrunk, if not evaporated.""

Reading the rest of the article was a waste of time for me. I don't see how it would be stronger than a buckball though.
 
Kidfinger said:
Exactly what I was wondering. Most of us use it every day...

From the article:




Graphene has been in pencils for a long time now.
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That is graphite. Graphene is a different form of it which is relatively new as of the last few years and can be extremely useful for technology. Its like the difference between carbon fiber being used in cars for a long time and carbon nano tubes being a new technology.
 
JUSTJOEL73 said:
Anyway the article on yahoo was mostly fluff, the only really news comes at the end of the article.

"Recently, however, scientists have discovered a more efficient way to produce graphene on an underlying base of copper, nickel or silicon, which subsequently is etched away.

"There has been spectacular progress in the last two or three months," Geim reported in the journal Science. "Challenges that looked so daunting just two years ago have suddenly shrunk, if not evaporated.""

Reading the rest of the article was a waste of time for me. I don't see how it would be stronger than a buckball though.
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I expect graphene has flexibility that bucky balls lack. Not to mention that paper is stronger than glass... if you step on it. :D
 
CHARGED WITH: Unoriginal "this is news?" style post.

Defendant has had prior convictions, based on testimonial and physical evidence.

All in favor of kicking Kristofff off the Internets, say Aye.


AYE!
 
Mohonri said:
So here's the kicker: how long until this hits production at scale? Seriously, we hear about such breakthroughs on an almost-daily basis. It might be solar cell efficiency, or fuel cell development, or room-temperature superconductors, or quantum computing, or cold fusion, or carbon nanotubes, but it's always "3-5 years from production" or "10-20 years away from market."

Call me when it gets used in a real product.
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and thats the inconvenient truth (anyone get the pun?), all we need is some people with a plan and a lot of money to help get discovery's like this into mass production.
 
Terminus said:
CHARGED WITH: Unoriginal "this is news?" style post.

Defendant has had prior convictions, based on testimonial and physical evidence.

All in favor of kicking Kristofff off the Internets, say Aye.


AYE!
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Of course its news, which is why I didn't say it wasn't.

Fail.
 
@ Kristofff:

Graphite, CNT's and bucky balls are all Graphene

Graphite is stacked graphene sheets
A CNT is a rolled up graphene sheet (single wall CNT)
A bucky is a ball shaped graphene sheet

All three are naturally occuring forms of graphene. They are now man-made because it is easier to make them than to separate and purify the natural ones.
 
azides said:
@ Kristofff:

Graphite, CNT's and bucky balls are all Graphene

Graphite is stacked graphene sheets
A CNT is a rolled up graphene sheet (single wall CNT)
A bucky is a ball shaped graphene sheet

All three are naturally occuring forms of graphene. They are now man-made because it is easier to make them than to separate and purify the natural ones.
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Sorry to nit-pick here, but bucky balls are not exactly forms of graphene. Graphite and carbon nanotubes are made up of only 6 member (hexagonal) rings of sp2 hybridized carbon atoms, to get the curved shape necessary to form a bucky ball (the prototypical form being C60 Buckminsterfullerene) you must have a mixture of 5 (pentagonal) and 6 membered rings. As such most people I know consider it a seperate allotrope of carbon. In general, the chemistry of the 5-6 ring junctions is also different than the homogenous hexagonal structure of graphene.
 
Azhar said:
The article make it sound like silicon is to graphene as oil is to renewable energy. Silicon's 40-year multibillion dollar foothold in the electronics market will make it extra harder for graphene to get the recognition and research it deserves.

Tech news need to keep reminding us that there's something better out there so an idea won't die or become overshadowed by the present.
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Actually it won't or at least it shouldn't only because A) it's fairly easy to produce, B) you can produce a ton of it for fairly cheap C) it's properties outweigh the downsides and a whole host of other pluses that this material displays.
 
if AMD would release a cpu made from this they would destroy Intel yeah?

get to it!!!!!!!!!!
 
All this really means is that it'll be 9 years before it's implemented in consumer level hardware at any prices we might consider "economically feasible" so...

Wake me up when I can actually buy something that utilizes it. :D
 
Is'nt this the stuff the Ringworld Engineers used to hold the shadow squares in place around the sun????
 
Is it graphene sheets? It's graphene sheets again, isn't it.

Science journalism would be a lot more interesting if any of the people doing it actually kept up to date with the material they're reporting on.
 
Azhar said:
The article make it sound like silicon is to graphene as oil is to renewable energy. Silicon's 40-year multibillion dollar foothold in the electronics market will make it extra harder for graphene to get the recognition and research it deserves.
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Actually, 2/3 of the presentations at the march APS meeting were on graphene. Believe me, everyone and their brother is on that bandwagon.

You are more likely to see Germanium or Bismuth Telluride (this has the same 2-d honeycomb lattice structure as graphene) replace silicon before graphene does. This stuff is many many years away from being on the market.
 
@ sdsdv10

Indeed that is true, I over-simplified it. Sorry!

What I would like to see is someone on [H] cool their processor with specialist graphitic materials, they have been developed for some time in heat management tech (nuclear, military and electronic). These materials only conduct heat in one direction depending on the particular orientation of graphene. It is interesting because the materials act as an insulator in one direction and a conductor in the other ... quite simply, if you have a cube block of it and heat it with a propane torch with the heat directed on one side, the block stays very cold, however, if you heat the adjacent side the whole block becomes hot very quickly. Perhaps could be used as an interface between the die and the heat-sink instead of the thermal paste rather than a heat-sink.

I am fairly sure the materials have a suitably high thermal conductivity (i.e. higher than copper) ... if I remember, I will ask one of my colleagues who makes/researches the stuff.
 
Does not surprise me about the APS having 2/3 graphene at the meeting. It seems to happen all the time these days ... what with nanotech, electrospinning, nanotubes etc. ... there are a lot of tech bandwagons. Sometimes I wonder if all organic chemists should now call themselves nanotechnologists in order to enhance their resume - after all is that not what they do?

Think you are definitely right about the years to market, there are many difficulties in producing these materials as a means to an end. It's one thing to make them and postulate about what could be done with them, it is another to perfect them and get the right sheet size for what you want to do.

I think the next step is for Martha Stewart to chime in and make K-mart some ultralight sheets. Thread count one, ultra thin, easy to fold and can be stored in a sample vial.
 
If it makes you feel beter steve, I haven't seen the previous links to this or heard of it before and I appreciate you posting it, its all new and interesting to me lol.
 
I worked with a graduate student at school who is writing his doctoral dissertation on graphene applications. It certainly seems like an interesting applied science.
 
GREAT! now suspend it in some form of liquid so i can put it in my gas tank and drive 700 miles
 
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