'Bizarre' Nanobubbles Found In Strained Graphene

schliz writes "Physicists have observed 'bizarre' behaviour in graphene electrons that they say could make the material even more suitable to replace silicon in future electronic devices. When strained in a particular manner, nanobubbles formed on a sheet of graphene, within which electrons came to occupy particular, quantum energy levels rather than the usual, continuous range of energies in unstrained graphene. By controlling electrons' energy levels, researchers could control how easily they moved through graphene — in effect, controlling their conductivity, optical, or microwave properties."

Comments

FINALLY!

[Michael Kristopeit]

#3 PENCILS!

Technology reaching its limits?

[Smidgin]

On the one hand, things like this are really cool and it's nice to know that there is a future for technology beyond silicon.

On the other, at scales this small (1 atom thick!) it makes me realize how close we're getting to the fundamental limits that will prevent transistors getting denser or computers getting faster/better.

Re:Technology reaching its limits?

[dpilot]

Ten-twenty years ago, science fiction had this nifty thing called "nanotech" that did all sorts of neat stuff. We still don't have Drexler machines, grey goo, or atomic-scale Digi-Comps, but I've been working sub-100nM for around 10 years now, getting smaller every generation, so we're getting into the ballpark.

But science fiction is not to be outdone, a few years back I read "Pushing Ice"by Alastair Reynolds. They had femto-tech.

Re:Technology reaching its limits?

[ceoyoyo]

The second article is about John Singleton and the polarization synchrotron. Unfortunately that article, which has been regurgitated all over the net gets WAY ahead of itself. I wasn't able to find out whether Singleton actually claimed faster than light data transmission while talking to that reporter (I very much doubt it) or if the reporter made it up, but no such thing was demonstrated.

This article is about the same thing and Singleton specifically says that special relativity is not violated, which means no information could be transmitted faster than light. The description of what's going on also makes it clear that the effect is very similar to the "waving a laser at the moon" example (used by Singleton himself), which does not involve any information transmission.

The speed of light in a vacuum (yes, when people say "the speed of light" in this context they mean in a vacuum) isn't the sacred thing. Nor is relativity. The real sacred principle is causality which, like the conservation of energy, has never been observed to be violated and would lead to all kinds of weird stuff if it ever were.

Maybe someone will one day figure out how to transmit a signal faster than light. At present no one has even described theoretically how it might reasonably be done.

You say you're not a physicist. May I suggest you take a bit more humble approach when criticizing actual physicists? Oh, and don't believe everything you read on the Internet.

Hmmm, that's funny.

[Thanshin]

"The most exciting phrase to hear in science, the one that heralds new discoveries, is not 'Eureka!' but 'That's funny ...' " - Isaac Asimov.

Texas Instruments

[RivenAleem]

Released a statement that it was developing a new line of Graphene Calculators

There are no limits with OSS

[Anonymous Coward]

We are only reaching these fundamental limits because most research facilities insist on using closed source, proprietary software. If these organisations were to use open source software, like Linux, then people could inspect the source code of the software and make it better so that scientists could make more discoveries more quickly and overcome these 'fundamental' barriers.

bizarre nanobubbles

[commodoresloat]

as opposed to the ordinary nanobubbles that you normally come across when you're straining your graphene

Amazingly high pseudofield

[mattr]

IANAP but my understanding is that the physical deformations or "bubbles" make electrons move in circles and attain energy levels as if in a magnetic field of 300 Teslas.
The LHC's cryogenically cooled magnets are only about 8 Teslas, and their substance theoretically can only handle 10T. The world record for continuous magnetic field is about 14T. The highest ever created explosively in the lab is 800T or so. So this is a really big (virtual) magnetic field. In other words the electrons must be at really high energy levels.

Some questions:
Is the energy level of the electron just a wierd quantum mirage-like thing? Or is it a real energy level that would release energy if allowed to drop down?
If you dropped a wire vertically onto the plate, would it create a current?
If you pop a bubble say from friction or maybe chemically what happens?
Is there any way to use this to perform experiments that could only be done in 300 T magnetic fields?
Are they really bubbles? Does one layer of graphene bloom up and expand into the top shell of the bubble?
Is it vacuum or air inside?

They need to review the literature

[Chelloveck]

It's because electrons act as waves rather than particles in graphene sheets. Old news. Dr. Sheldon Cooper proved this months ago. Keep up with the literature, people!