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World's First Single-Atom-Thick Fabric

Posted by CowboyNeal on from the barely-there dept.

neutron_p writes "Researchers at The University of Manchester have made the world's first single-atom-thick fabric, which reveals the existence of a new class of materials and may lead to computers made from a single molecule. They call it graphene, because it's 'webbed' by extraction of individual planes of carbon atoms from graphite crystal. The nanofabric belongs to the family of fullerene molecules, which were discovered during the last two decades, but is the first two-dimensional fullerene."

5 of 390 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Can it cut things? by Dancin_Santa · · Score: 5, Informative

    Since it is only one type of molecule and only one molecule thick, the refractive index of the material would be constant. So if it had any color at all, it would be a constant color, not a rainbow like oil or a prism produces.

  2. Re:Would someone be allergic to it? by I+am+the+Bullgod · · Score: 5, Informative

    Don't get thrown off by the term "fabric". If you read the article, you'll realize that the applications of this are mainly in integrated circuit fabrication. As far as the health and environmental issues, we're talking about a pure carbon lattice. With this process carbon can act as a semiconductor without dopants such as arsenic, so C-based semiconductors are actually "greener" than current silicon-based chips.

  3. Re:Would someone be allergic to it? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative
    Read this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fullerene , especially the "Possible dangers" section.
    An experiment by Eva Obersdörster at the Southern Methodist University in Dallas which introduced fullerenes into water at concentrations of 0.5 parts per million found that largemouth bass suffered a "17-fold increase in cellular damage in the brain tissue" after 48 hours. The damage was of the type lipid peroxidation, which is known to impair the functioning of cell membranes. There were also inflammatory changes in the liver and activation of genes related to the making of repair enzymes.
  4. Re:Can it cut things? by gardyloo · · Score: 5, Informative

    Except glass (usually) has a constant index of refraction (as does bubble film, which you're apparently thinking of). It's the fact that there is chromatic dispersion (simply: different frequencies of light--the colors--travel at different speeds in the medium (giving different refraction angles, and, therefore, different paths and pathlengths). So even though the index of refracton is constant for a _given_frequency_, the fact that the index changes for different frequencies gives the colors (along with multiple reflections from front and back surfaces).

    The fact that this stuff is only one molecule thick is much more persuasive. In fact, very thin bubbles are completely transparent to light, because the light cannot refract if the film is less than about a wavelength thick. Since molecules (chains and polymers get a little tricky, of course) are generally much, much smaller than a visible wavelength, this stuff will probably be virtually invisible, unless, as another poster pointed out, it's extremely highly conductive (which would cause a skin-depth effect and probably do more complicated things to light).

  5. Re:Would someone be allergic to it? by uncoolcentral · · Score: 5, Informative
    Um, no, actually, dander is bits of skin.

    Look it up.

    People are allergic to either the dander, saliva or urine of cats.

    sure sure, off-topic, but correct ;)