Two Win Nobel for Work on Ultra-Thin Material

[n2doc]

Source: New York Times

DENNIS OVERBYE
Published: October 5, 2010

A pair of Russian-born physicists working at the University of Manchester in England have won the Nobel prize in physics for investigating the ultra-thin properties of carbon flakes known as graphene, the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences said Tuesday.

They are Andre Geim, 51, and Konstantin Novoselov, 36. They will split the prize of $1.4 million.

Graphene, in which carbon atoms are arranged in a flat hexagon lattice like chicken wire, is not only the thinnest material in the world at one atom thick, but also the strongest.

A sheet of it stretched over a coffee cup could support the weight of a truck bearing down on a pencil point. Among its other properties, it conducts electricity and heat better than any other known material and is completely transparent. Physicists say that eventually it could rival silicon as a basis for computer chips, serve as a sensitive pollution monitoring material, improve flat screen televisions and enable the creation of new materials, among other things.

Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/06/science/06nobel.html?_r=1&hp

[marketbreakaway]

1. Drums keep pounding rhythm to the brain...

In an America so deeply divided it is wonderful to see a little bit of news that bring back excitement for the future. Yes, the beat does go on regardless of your politics. This little bit of wonder comes to us from Russia...

[roguevalley]

7. now if scotty could just come and give us the formula for clear

metal, the world would be in great shape. :-D

[truthisfreedom]

2. Totally wow!

Extremely exciting.

[muriel_volestrangler]

3. And one won an IgNobel prize too!

The graphene creation originated in what Dr. Geim and Dr. Novoselov call “Friday evening” experiments, crazy things that might or might not work out.

In one of them, Dr. Geim managed to levitate a frog in a magnetic field, for which he won an IgNobel — a parody award for “improbable research” — in 2000.

Is he the first person to win a Nobel prize after an IgNobel one?

[yowzayowzayowza]

6. Way cool!!

:thumbsup:

[bemildred]

4. "A sheet ... over a coffee cup could support the weight of a truck bearing down on a pencil point."

I find that improbable, wouldn't the coffee cup collapse?

[skoalyman]

5. that would have to be one strong pencil too

[muriel_volestrangler]

8. Not necessarily

http://1.bp.blogspot.com.nyud.net:8080/_hZllXScerWM/TJifCK-aHDI/AAAAAAAACNA/E_86YxYhTow/s400/article-1284628017234-0B3251B8000005DC-422618_636x366.jpg

http://3.bp.blogspot.com.nyud.net:8080/_hZllXScerWM/TJifFtJOpaI/AAAAAAAACNI/hfQw7Dj3GO0/s400/article-1284628172197-0B325769000005DC-23996_466x384.jpg

Here's the catch, any vitrified ware will have a compressive strength of 10,000-15,000 kilograms force. Much stronger then is required to hold up that bus.

http://slipcast.blogspot.com/2010/09/ummmm-yeah-about-that.html

[bemildred]

9. I see several cups there, and what about the pencil?

But seriously, aren't you skeptical that all that weight focussed on a couple millimeters of a one molecule thick sheet would not just push on through?

[skoalyman]

10. sorry misread the article

:hi:

[bemildred]

13. Pencil points are graphite too, right? Soft graphite. It's like mush.

:hi:

[muriel_volestrangler]

11. I was replying about the strength of the coffee cup

Yeah, it's 4 cups, but that's a 15 tonne bus, and you can find 'a truck' lighter than that. Anyway, the ceramics blog reckons a single cup can take 10 to 15 tonnes. From an old textbook:

the ultimate compressive strength for porcelain and for high grade stoneware is about 20,000 lb. per sq. in.

http://www.archive.org/stream/textbookofmateri00moorrich/textbookofmateri00moorrich_djvu.txt

I reckon a coffee cup is roughly 1 inch radius, and 1/8th thickness; cross-section is 2*pi*r*t = about 0.8 square inches. That's about 7 tons, for that strength.

I don't think they're saying the one atom thick sheet would take it; it's scaling up the strength they have tested. For instance:

Now, researchers have discovered that graphene has remarkable mechanical properties too. Changgu Lee and Xiaoding Wei at Columbia University, New York, took flakes of graphene 10 to 20 micrometers in diameter and laid them across a silicon wafer patterned with holes just 1 to 1.5 micrometers in diameter, like a microscopic muffin tray.

The graphene above the tiny holes was unsupported, and Lee and Wei poked at these with the diamond tip of an atomic force microscope to see how readily the graphene deformed and ruptured.

They found that the graphene could be pushed downwards by 100 nanometres with a force of up to 2.9 micronewtons before rupturing. The researchers estimate that graphene has a breaking strength of 55 newtons per metre.

"As a way of visualising the force needed to break the membranes, imagine trying to puncture a sheet of graphene that is as thick as ordinary plastic food wrap - typically 100 micrometers thick," says James Hone, head of the laboratory at Columbia in which Lee studies. "It would require a force of over 20,000 newtons, equivalent to the weight of a 2000 kilogram car."

That strength puts graphene literally "off the chart" of the strongest materials measured, Hone says. "These measurements constitute a benchmark of strength that a macroscopic system will never achieve, but can hope to approach," he says.

http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn14354-atomthick-carbon-sheets-set-new-strength-record.html

Maybe the truck/sheet over a coffee cup image is misleading; but, anyway, the cup can take it.

[bemildred]

12. Ah, that's better, I guess it was the "one atom thick" in the previous paragraph.

Anybody could get confused.
:hi:

[JNelson6563]

14. Wow!

"A sheet of it stretched over a coffee cup could support the weight of a truck bearing down on a pencil point" Remarkable! Congratulations to Mr. Geim & Novoselov! :party:


Julie