Slashdot Mirror
Graphene Sheets Get Easier To Manufacture
grunaura writes "South Korean researchers have devised a way to create graphene sheets one centimeter square using a hydrocarbon vapor on heated nickel. It's touted as being more efficient than the current process where graphene sheets are pressed, and there is evidence that 'the quality of graphene grown by chemical vapour deposition is as high as mechanically cleaved graphene.' Graphene is relatively new, but not to Slashdot. This round of news highlighting the technology focuses on the bendable nature of graphene sheets, as opposed to the memory applications or capacitive properties discussed here previously. These films are the closest we have come to superconductors at room temperature."
You'd have to watch for atomic scale foxes, which will tunnel right through to your chickens.
This breakthrough has the same potential to do to graphine research as did mass production of nanotubes and other nanomaterials. The more readily available the more research can be done. As the price goes down more can get a hold of the material. Maybe we can finally create more powerful chips using this as a substrate.
Procrastinating life a way at a rapid rate of speed.
Mention was made of its capacitive properties. If you could make continual graphene sheets, for example, and roll them up together with a similarly thin insulator, you could create supercapacitors that would charge almost instantly, yet still store enough charge, at high voltage, to blow off entire limbs if you were not careful... and still be not much bigger than the head of a pin.
As long as heat dissipation was accounted for, you could charge an electric car in 5 minutes, and easily drive from Seattle to Los Angeles without stopping.
So yeah... it's a pretty major thing. There are still other applications that could be astounding, like superstrong composites. Space elevator, anyone?
Of course we care about superconductors, but this stuff will be incredible even if it hardly conducts at all.
Isn't it likely that further refinements will only marginally improve the effectiveness? Unless it is really close to being a room-temperature superconductor already, I don't see them achieving their goal with graphene.
It hasn't been shown to be superconducting but its conductivity is orders of magnitude better than silicon (which comprises most of a computer chip -- even the interconnects). I don't think anyone is thinking superconductor applications but rather a silicon successor kind of thing that is evolutionary rather than revolutionary.
Okay, so it's not cost effective. Target audiophiles! You'll still make a profit, and they'll claim it's awesome so they don't look like an ass for dropping insane amounts of money for cables.
Today is red jello day - all workers must eat all of their red jello. Failure to comply will result in five demerits.
A small disclaimer: i am working with low-temperature supercondutors, but i only use them in an application, i am not researching these.
That said, i state my opinion from somebody who want to build sth out of superconductors: The hunt for a room temperature SC has consumed a lot of attention, money, and research time. It would be better to stop focusing on searching for a RT superconductor, and to stop telling everybody you want to do so. In 90% of the cases other properties of the SC prevent its widespread use. That is, because during the last 20 years cooling technology has made great progress. Nowadays, you can buy "press a button and a few hours later you are at 100mK" systems of the shelf, as well as hand held pulse coolers going down to 5K. For most applications, where superconductors would replace normal condutors, cooling is a big issue with normal conductors already. E.g. high field coils build with normal technolody consume incredible amounts of cooling water, which make cooling the same mass to a lower temperature, but much lower cooling power a very favorable idea. In electronics, air conditioners of computing centers now are already big.
While i believe that graphene is one of the very promising new materials, i dont see it application as superconductor soon. My suggestion for the community would be not to blow out too much research time of this, but focus on the unique properties of the material. If as a byproduct, it turns out to a good SC, it will take 10-15more years to develop applications using it. Moreover, the continuous fantasy of the room temperature SC has worn off a lot of its glory since the first discoveries of HTSCs. The possible disappointment in funding agencies associated with even mentioning this is a dangerous thing. Otherwise i believe whatever you can with graphene, there is a load of really fascinating new physics to be done. But first telling "hey we are close to a room temperature SC" may take the attention of the referee and when reviewing you results, he may say: "you did not do what you promised" instead of "fascinating new science you did!". That is, because the referee is selected to be matching the field of the project. Would i work on graphene mono layers i would prefer to have a senior 2DEG guy as a referee instead on of the HT brewing alchemists (sorry, this is note meant negative - it just honors the fact that the HTC experimentalists are still out in the dark, because theorists did not yet come up with a conclusive theory...., most experimentalist in the field do great experiments with combining really cool analysis methods with great care and use a systematic way of exploring the parameter space of HTC materials, which is fascinating. I am not patient enough to do that.) .
Currently, there are three methods for creating circuits using graphine. Smashing, spraying and now vapor grown. If the graphine is perfect and I mean, every carbon atom utilizing its four bonds to connect to another carbon atom, we get pretty close to super conductor. These sheets per the nature article are at ~280Ohms resistance. Once we have the ability to reliably "print" sheets with circuits, we come to the point of refining our circuits for each application and we can then get away from "central processing" for further imporovements. We have a long way to go with this technology but the future looks bright.
Bismuth nanotubes are superconductors at room temperature, if you can make them thin enough - just a few molecules in diameter. One process for making them is by growing a thread between two point electrodes in a molten epoxy-bismuth mixture. Gradually draw the electrodes apart as the nanotube grows in length.
-Ruggy
Superconducting does not just mean very low resistance. It means unique magnetic properties as well. Graphene is not a high temperature superconductor. It is a very good conductor, thats all.
This is a great paper, I've already tried this technique and it easily produces graphene.
Strangely, this technique is not new. This paper kind of jump-started many memories in the field and it turns out that in the 1980s, people were already growing graphene with a method similar to this, and identified it as single layer graphite. There are even atomic resolution images of graphene from the early 90s. For a material "discovered" in 2004, that's kind of a shock. It turns out the word "graphene" didn't show up until 2004, and no one made good electrical devices until then.
Graphene is not a room temperature superconductor... it's just the best room temperature conductor we've found. Nobody panic.
I guess that's why the abstract focuses on the conductivity and the transparency of the material. Samsung very obviously wants to be the world number one in imaging and printing, and there is growing evidence that they are going to achieve it.
From scarped cliff or quarried stone she cries "A thousand types are gone, I care for nothing, no not one."
point taken.
Okay... you could drive from Seattle to L.A. without stopping to charge the vehicle. How's that?
I hate to be a pedant, especially in my first post, however, I feel that I must inform you that each of the carbon atoms in graphene (as in a single sheet of graphite) only form 3 covalent bonds with their neighbouring carbon atom. The fourth valency remains unbonded and the electron in question is delocalised across the system - giving graphene its conductive capaicity. I hope that this clears things up. This whole thing does sound exciting, though... Who know what the future holds for this technology?