Levitating Graphene Is Fastest-Spinning Object

techbeat writes "A flake of exotic carbon a few atoms thick has claimed a record: the speck has been spun faster than any other object, at a clip of 60 million rotations per minute. Previously, micrometre-sized crystals have been spun at up to 30,000 rpm using an optical trap. It is thanks to graphene's amazing strength that the flakes are not pulled apart by the much higher spinning rate, says Bruce Kane at the University of Maryland in College Park. Spinning could be a way to probe the properties of graphene, or manipulate it in new ways."

Comments

uhm, 30 000RPM?

[Skal Tura]

Summary fscked up. 30 000RPM isn't exactly much at all.

Ie. almost all RC (radio controlled) model brushless motors can do 30k RPM, and some brushed motors can do that as well...

Nevermind so many other things which do spin reaaally fast ...

Re:uhm, 30 000RPM?

[retroStick]

It's not a typo, it's talking about rotations of a single microcrystal.
The previous article that is referenced records rates of 500 rotations per second - which is 30,000rpm.

Re:uhm, 30 000RPM?

[tomhudson]

Turbos regularly go into the 100,000+ rpm region.

Re:30k rpm = typo

[Anonymous Coward]

No typo. Read the original abstract: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19424395

500 turns per second. But your HD isn't put to rotation by a light beam - that's the news of this article, not the speed.

Re:Video?

[wjousts]

So after RTFA(bstract):

At micro-torr pressures, torques from circularly polarized light cause the levitated particles to rotate at frequencies >1MHz, which can be inferred from modulation of light scattering off the rotating flake when an electric field resonant with the rotation rate is applied.

Re:neat

[sFurbo]

It doesn't matter, the maximum energy stored per mass of flywheel is the specific tensile strength of the material. If the specks have higher specific tensile strength than the bulk, it would be more, though.

Macroscopic RPM Record

[Bob9113]

"As a result, the flakes started spinning at 60 million rotations per minute, faster than any other macroscopic object."

"Previously, micrometre-sized crystals have been spun at up to 30,000 rpm"

Following through to the source of that quote:

"Their short axis follows the direction of the linear polarization of the beam. In circular or elliptic polarization, the crystals are spontaneously put in rotation with a high speed of up to 500 turns per second. It is the first time, to the best of our knowledge, that such a result is reported for particles of the size of our crystals."

So, if the 30,000 RPM crystal is interesting because it was a crystal, or because it was small, fine. But if they're saying that 30,000 RPM was interesting for large objects, ummm, turbocharger turbines spin at up to 150,000 RPM.

That said; 60 million RPM is very impressive.

Re:neat

[endymion.nz]

Yes, it is better described by the conservation of angular momentum, but we all know what a centrifuge does.