What's graphene, and why is its development worth a Nobel Prize? In just a few years you might be riding in it, tapping on it as you use your iPhone 9, or watching 3-D TV on a lightweight, big-screen panel made using graphene.
But wait ... there's more: Sheets of graphene could also be tweaked to create electronic circuits that are mere molecules thick, or built into a new generation of body scanners for hospitals or airports.
And it all basically started with a strip of Scotch tape.
The researchers who shared the physics Nobel today, Konstantin Novoselov and Andre Geim of the University of Manchester, reported back in 2004 that they were able to demonstrate interesting electronic effects with ultra-thin sheets of carbon that they created "by mechanical exfoliation ... of small mesas of highly oriented pyrolytic graphite." In other words, they used Scotch tape to pull thin layers of carbon off a block of pencil lead.
That was the start of something big. Atom for atom, graphene turned out to be 100 times stronger than steel in large part because the single-layered atoms are tightly bonded together in a honeycomb lattice.
Cosmic Log - Graphene: Thin stuff is a big fat deal
But wait ... there's more: Sheets of graphene could also be tweaked to create electronic circuits that are mere molecules thick, or built into a new generation of body scanners for hospitals or airports.
And it all basically started with a strip of Scotch tape.
The researchers who shared the physics Nobel today, Konstantin Novoselov and Andre Geim of the University of Manchester, reported back in 2004 that they were able to demonstrate interesting electronic effects with ultra-thin sheets of carbon that they created "by mechanical exfoliation ... of small mesas of highly oriented pyrolytic graphite." In other words, they used Scotch tape to pull thin layers of carbon off a block of pencil lead.
That was the start of something big. Atom for atom, graphene turned out to be 100 times stronger than steel in large part because the single-layered atoms are tightly bonded together in a honeycomb lattice.
Cosmic Log - Graphene: Thin stuff is a big fat deal