World's First Single-Atom-Thick Fabric

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."

Comments

Re:Would someone be allergic to it?

[drerwk]

many posters seem to think that the irritation/allergy issue has only to do with chemical composition. You have to consider the mechanics as well. For example - sand size silicon is no problem - we walk beaches covered in the stuff, we have sand storms where the air is full of it, but we also have noses and lungs evolved to filter the stuff. When you get to micron sized particles, it can be the size as much as the composition that is relevant. See Link
Consider asbestos. Not a problem when incorporated in insulation. In fact you can touch it and eat it no problem. The problem is that asbestos tends to make the wrong size particles that can penetrate the lungs. So the physical size of the particle is more important than it's chemical composition.
Hope this is not too deep (in the lungs) for the non-allergy/chicken-little people to comprehend. What do you think coal miners get? Coal is carbon afterall. Two important pneumoconioses are coal worker's pneumoconiosis and silicosis.

Computers made from single molecule

[panurge]

I'm beginning to think that nowadays every tech article has to include at least 1 really stupid claim, either so the authors can laugh at the stupid journos who pass them on uncritically, or because it's the bit the journalist will think he understands and that will make a headline.
Any kind of machinery requires differentiated structures, and anything involving electricity requires localised anisotropy - or how will you get your current flows separate in order to do anything useful? DNA has a differentiated structure but it is not a machine, it is a recording medium (parenthetically, it's just as well the RIAA wasn't around when life evolved: "What do you mean, you can replicate DNA? That's illegal file-sharing!") and the machines that do something useful with it are all multi-molecular. It's unlikely a few billion years (sorry, George) of evolution will be seriously wrong about this. I don't mind Slashdot contributors including marketoid claims in headers, but they might at least quarantine them in quotes and put a [sic] at the end so we know that they know what we know.

Re:can you tear this?

[HalfStarted]

While you are probably right about it not being strong because there is only one layer it is much stronger than you think. When you tear a piece of paper of an other fabric you are not breaking atomic bonds you are separating fibers that are mushed or spun together.

A better comparison would be thinking about tearing a piece of aluminum foil. It is very hard to cause it to separate under tension and you have to add sheering forces to get a fracture to start.