New Strongest Material

(+[]::)<GBA · Post by **(+[]::)<GBA** » Fri Jul 10, 2009 5:20 am

Its Stronger than Diamond and conducts electricity 100 times more than Silicone

It's called : Graphene

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Graphene Article

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's 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," said Rod Ruoff , a graphene researcher at the University of Texas, Austin , in an e-mail. A gram is about 1/30th 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.

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.

Potential graphene applications include touch screens, solar cells, energy storage devices, cell phones and, eventually, high-speed computer chips.

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.

"In the near and medium term, it's going to be extremely difficult for graphene to displace silicon as the main material in computer electronics," said Tomas Palacios , a graphene researcher at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology . "Silicon is a multi-billion dollar industry that has been perfecting silicon processing for 40 years."

Government and university laboratories, long-established companies such as IBM , and small start-ups are working to solve difficult problems in making graphene and turning it into useful products.

Ruoff founded a company in Austin called Graphene Energy, which is seeking ways to store renewable energy from solar cells or the energy captured from braking in autos.

The Pentagon is also interested in this new high-tech material. The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency is spending $22 million on research to make computer chips and transistors out of graphene.

Graphene was the leading topic at the annual meeting of the American Physical Society — a leading organization of physicists — in Pittsburgh in April. Researchers packed 23 panel sessions on the topic. About 1,500 scientific papers on graphene were published in 2008 alone.

Until last year, the only way to make graphene was to mount flakes of graphite on sticky tape and separate a single layer by carefully peeling away the tape. They called it the "Scotch Tape technique."

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."

"I'm confident there will be many commercial applications," Ruoff said. "We will begin to see hybrid devices — mostly made from silicon, but with a critical part of the device being graphene — in niche applications."

Momoka · Post by **Momoka** » Fri Jul 10, 2009 6:25 am

You really earned those 5 slimebucks, didn't you.

(+[]::)<GBA · Post by **(+[]::)<GBA** » Fri Jul 10, 2009 7:49 am

it was 20....but i thought i would share because this may effect our future in computers and other forms of electronics. possibly other things as well

8bifit · Post by **8bifit** » Wed Jul 15, 2009 3:22 am

Yeah. Like instead of having the best armor and weapons in our games be of the "Diamond" variety, they would now be of the "Graphene" variety. Thank you, GBA. Your contribution is duly noted.

Newbie Newtype · Post by **Newbie Newtype** » Wed Jul 15, 2009 3:26 am

Yeah. Like instead of having the best armor and weapons in our games be of the "Diamond" variety, they would now be of the "Graphene" variety.

Weakness to electricity and blunt attacks.

Momoka · Post by **Momoka** » Wed Jul 15, 2009 5:05 am

8bit Pontiff wrote:Yeah. Like instead of having the best armor and weapons in our games be of the "Diamond" variety, they would now be of the "Graphene" variety. Thank you, GBA. Your contribution is duly noted.

I actually kinda want to do that now

Nathan Karr · Post by **Nathan Karr** » Thu Jul 16, 2009 1:58 am

The problem being that G R A P H E N E is already eight letters long, leaving no room for the item-type icon.

Newbie Newtype · Post by **Newbie Newtype** » Thu Jul 16, 2009 2:18 am

XCALBUR
LITNING
BATTLAX
GRAPHEN

(+[]::)<GBA · Post by **(+[]::)<GBA** » Thu Jul 16, 2009 9:59 pm

8bit Pontiff wrote:Yeah. Like instead of having the best armor and weapons in our games be of the "Diamond" variety, they would now be of the "Graphene" variety. Thank you, GBA. Your contribution is duly noted.

your welcome

Shizuma · Post by **Shizuma** » Tue Jul 21, 2009 8:56 am

Graphene?? Couldn't of they picked a cooler name? I'm never naming an item graphene because it just sounds too stupid.

Aeth · Post by **Aeth** » Wed Jul 22, 2009 5:26 pm

Shizuma wrote:Graphene?? Couldn't of they picked a cooler name? I'm never naming an item graphene because it just sounds too stupid.

Graphene is a pretty good name for it actually because it's easy for a non-scientist to remember while still being a scientific name (particularly the -ene suffix).

Delfino · Post by **Delfino** » Fri Sep 04, 2009 7:27 am

how would you about constructing clothing/armor out of nigh-indestructable material?

Momoka · Post by **Momoka** » Fri Sep 04, 2009 7:44 am

Delfino wrote:how would you about constructing clothing/armor out of nigh-indestructable material?

Melt it and pour it into a mold?

Post by **Bob the Hamster** » Fri Sep 04, 2009 1:54 pm

if you could melt graphene, it would stop being graphene, and would become a soup of other forms of carbon, I think.

From what little I know about Graphene, in order to get it into the desired shape (magic armor, mighty sword, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Elevator">space elevator cable</a> it has to be <I>grown</I> into shape...

Momoka · Post by **Momoka** » Fri Sep 04, 2009 2:04 pm

It could also be carved, with lasers