Researchers Create Glass Just 3 Atoms Thick

sciencehabit writes "Researchers have created the world's thinnest pane of glass. The glass, made of silicon and oxygen, formed accidentally when the scientists were making graphene, an atom-thick sheet of carbon, on copper-covered quartz. They believe an air leak caused the copper to react with the quartz, which is also made of silicon and oxygen, producing a glass layer with the graphene. The glass is a mere three atoms thick — the minimum thickness of silica glass—which makes it two-dimensional. The team notes that the structure 'strikingly resembles' a diagram drawn by a glass theorist attempting to unravel its structure back in 1932. Such ultra-thin glass could be used in semiconductor or graphene transistors." See Nano Letters for an abstract (and another picture) to the paywalled article.

Comments

Just wait until Apple hear about this

[Hieronymus Howard]

And in related news, iPad 4 rumored to be just 2mm thick.

Re:Just wait until Apple hear about this

[ackthpt]

And in related news, iPad 4 rumored to be just 2mm thick.

Too fat. I'm waiting for the iPad 5, rumoured to be 5 atoms thick.

Re:Just wait until Apple hear about this

[zrbyte]

Don't you mean 2 mm thin?

Re:Just wait until Apple hear about this

[Sinn3d]

Just imagine the amount of iPad/phones/4/5/X's prototypes they will lose/misplace then...

Re:Just wait until Apple hear about this

[Chemisor]

I just don't understand why they make them so thin. Thin brittle things tend to snap in half like crackers.

Re:Just wait until Apple hear about this

[Anonymous Coward]

Nope, that's the Apple... I mean Mapple Void.

Re:Just wait until Apple hear about this

[Anonymous Coward]

exactly.

Re:Just wait until Apple hear about this

[Anonymous Coward]

No, thick. It'll be obsolete by the time you hear about it.

Re:Just wait until Apple hear about this

[Migraineman]

Don't dismiss the injury liability associated with this product. Knock it off the bistro table, and it's likely to take your barrista's toes off! (the pointy-end of a razor blade is about 2um wide ... a veritable brick, by comparison.)

Re:Just wait until Apple hear about this

[Joce640k]

Style, baby, style...

Re:Just wait until Apple hear about this

[tlhIngan]

Soon we'll have ot worry about getting papercuts from our non-paper tablets!.

Re:Just wait until Apple hear about this

[Anonymous Coward]

It'll probably come with a flash drive that's half-empty.

Re:Just wait until Apple hear about this

[sjames]

It slices, it dices, it chops!

Next week, Ginsu sues Apple.

Re:Just wait until Apple hear about this

[jdastrup]

Next week, Ginsu sues Apple.

No, it will be Apple that sues Ginsu.

I still get a kick out of how they patented the magnetic connection for their power supplies, when my grandma's deep fryer had that exact same feature 30 years ago

Re:Just wait until Apple hear about this

[Anonymous Coward]

So Motorola will sue for obvious Razr reference :-)
But on the other hand, you cannot shave with Motorola phone, and with this 2um phone ... you can chop off your head

Two-dimensional?

[Scutter]

The glass is a mere three atoms thick — the minimum thickness of silica glass—which makes it two-dimensional.

It's not two dimensional if it has a measurable thickness, which you stated in that same sentence. Unless you have a different definition of "two dimensional" than the rest of us.

Re:Two-dimensional?

[DSS11Q13]

Perhaps it just had a bland personality?

Re:Two-dimensional?

[operagost]

This must be one of those theoretical physicist jokes, like a spherical cow.

Re:Two-dimensional?

[tungstencoil]

It's not two dimensional if it has a measurable thickness, which you stated in that same sentence. Unless you have a different definition of "two dimensional" than the rest of us.

Someone posted that same criticism in the article. Here is someone's reply (again, from the comments). I'm not a chemist or physicist, but what they say sounds reasonable:

Hi Heather - fair enough, it's not 2D as in the mathematical concept, but 2D has a physical meaning as well - the thinnest version of a material. Because the silicon and oxygen atoms don't lay flat, glass needs a minimum of three layers of atoms (two silicon and one oxygen) to form a chemically stable sheet. Inside some of these technically 3D ultrathin materials, the electrons behave like their world is two dimensional.

Re:Two-dimensional?

[gsgriffin]

Molecularly

Re:Two-dimensional?

[SJHillman]

I believe they're calling it two dimensional because it's the minimum thickness possible, so for practical purposes, the thickness is equal to a single point. You can argue semantics all you want, but if you were to "travel" on a glass sheet, you would only be able to go along the X axis or Y axis - there is no ability to travel along a Z axis that is only a single point.

Re:Two-dimensional?

[Scutter]

It's not two dimensional if it has a measurable thickness, which you stated in that same sentence. Unless you have a different definition of "two dimensional" than the rest of us.

Someone posted that same criticism in the article. Here is someone's reply (again, from the comments). I'm not a chemist or physicist, but what they say sounds reasonable:

Hi Heather - fair enough, it's not 2D as in the mathematical concept, but 2D has a physical meaning as well - the thinnest version of a material. Because the silicon and oxygen atoms don't lay flat, glass needs a minimum of three layers of atoms (two silicon and one oxygen) to form a chemically stable sheet. Inside some of these technically 3D ultrathin materials, the electrons behave like their world is two dimensional.

Ok, I can accept that.

Re:Two-dimensional?

[Anonymous Coward]

Unless you have a different definition of "two dimensional" than the rest of us.

You're talking about euclidean space, they're talking about crystal structure. They've built an n * n * 1 array of molecules, if you like. If you can't spot the isomorphism between that and an n * n array, you might want to steer clear of any IQ tests...

Re:Two-dimensional?

[Anonymous Coward]

It isn't 2 Dimensional PERIOD, it is in the lowest possible width for it itself which makes it 2 dimensional.

It is like saying paper is 2 dimensional because any thinner and it would become useless as a macroscale object for writing on.
Context is key here.

Re:Two-dimensional?

[Anonymous Coward]

The glass is a mere three atoms thick — the minimum thickness of silica glass—which makes it two-dimensional.

It's not two dimensional if it has a measurable thickness, which you stated in that same sentence. Unless you have a different definition of "two dimensional" than the rest of us.

Really? Graphene is 0.34 nm thick, and I'm quite certain that is a 2 dimensional material. In terms of graphene it's 3 dimensional after 3 layers. So the measurable thickness argument isn't valid

Re:Two-dimensional?

[Anonymous Coward]

spherical cow

My ex-wife?

Re:Two-dimensional?

[sunderland56]

Inside some of these technically 3D ultrathin materials, the electrons behave like their world is two dimensional.

Nonsense. Is one single atom zero-dimensional?

Even one single electron has a measurable size, and is a three-dimensional object.

Re:Two-dimensional?

[koolguy442]

The glass is a mere three atoms thick — the minimum thickness of silica glass—which makes it two-dimensional.

It's not two dimensional if it has a measurable thickness, which you stated in that same sentence. Unless you have a different definition of "two dimensional" than the rest of us.

Your question can be answered in two ways. First, in the materials science community, it's common to denote a material or chunk of material that has a very high aspect ratio, for instance very large in one or two dimensions and small in size on the order of the atomic scale in the remaining directions as effectively one- and two-dimensional. In fact, quantum dots are thought of in materials science as generally zero-dimensional, even though they most certainly have more than one atom (and even if they comprised a single atom, the electron cloud extends in three dimensions). So, as far as the materials science and electron microscopy fields are concerned, this is two-dimensional.

Second, you tend to get your paper published in fancier journals and grab more headlines by having sensational things such as 2D (in this case) or quantum or some such buzzword in your title these days.

Re:Two-dimensional?

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, in classical crystallography this is called 2+1 dimensional: It is *infinite* in 2 dimensions and finitely extends into 1 additional dimension. So shortening this to two dimensional is not completely wrong. It is understood that the dimensionality only pertains to the lattice, not to the whole object. I would recommend that you learn the lingo before flaming on the internet.

Unfortunately the notion of x+y dimensionality is nowadays used by the incommensurate crystallographers, that many people don't understand what you say when you talk about a 2+1 dimensional material/module.

Disclamer: IAAC.

Re:Two-dimensional?

[Artifakt]

It's two dimensional, in that the graph of the atomic bonds is a flat, 2 dimensional graph. That's not "a different definition ... than the rest of us", that's called context. It's the definition a chemist would normally use. If you're trying to prove your brilliance by pointing out that the whole universe has nothing physical that is infinitely thin, sorry, but we stopped giving away Nobel prizes for that. At least four people basically modded you insightful for pointing out that atoms are not infinitely small - that makes Slashdot clearly three dimensional, because we have something infinitely thick around here.

Re:Two-dimensional?

[fredrated]

From a post by the author at TFA:
"Inside some of these technically 3D ultrathin materials, the electrons behave like their world is two dimensional."

Re:Two-dimensional?

[koolguy442]

The glass is a mere three atoms thick — the minimum thickness of silica glass—which makes it two-dimensional.

It's not two dimensional if it has a measurable thickness, which you stated in that same sentence. Unless you have a different definition of "two dimensional" than the rest of us.

Really? Graphene is 0.34 nm thick, and I'm quite certain that is a 2 dimensional material. In terms of graphene it's 3 dimensional after 3 layers. So the measurable thickness argument isn't valid

Graphene is most certainly not .34 nm thick. What you are quoting is the equilibrium spacing between one graphene sheet and the next in crystalline graphite. The true "thickness" of graphene is hard to gauge, actually. If you take the standard model of quantum mechanics, the carbon atoms within graphene are point particles, and therefore have no thickness. It is reasonable, then, to measure the extent of the electron clouds from the carbon. Since the electron clouds are statistical formulations, they theoretically extend to infinity. However, because I'm a materials scientist and not some fancy physicist with a deep, quantitative understanding of electron orbital theory, I would say a good guess is to say that the radius of the electron cloud around a particular atom is about equal to half the bond length between one carbon and the next. In this case, about 0.071 nm.

So if I were pressed to give an answer as to the thickness of a graphene sheet, not that it would generally matter in any context I'd think of, I'd call it 0.142 nm thick.

Re:Two-dimensional?

[Anonymous Coward]

Haha, no, electrons are point particles.

Re:Two-dimensional?

[Anonymous Coward]

The same way my crayon drawing is two-dimensional.
Technically, the thickness of the crayon on the construction paper can be measured, but it is still a 2D drawing.

Re:Two-dimensional?

[littlebigbot]

No real character development.

Re:Two-dimensional?

[peragrin]

Thats just it atoms have measurable sizes therefore it cant be a single point.

To put it in perspective if you look at the solar system from the side since it is only one planet thick then it is only a point.

Atoms have orbits wuth measurable distancesunderstanding those distance is a huge part of engineering on that level.

It can never be 2D. Thinking it as such limits understanding.

Re:Two-dimensional?

[Anonymous Coward]

you don't need to have some philosophically rigorous definition to every useful concept you decide. Whatever you do in whatever field you work in, I'm sure you use actively similar jargon. Hell, you speak english, Until you fix that, fuck off asshole.

Re:Two-dimensional?

[Anonymous Coward]

I think you have a different definition of "pedantic asshat" than the rest of us.

Re:Two-dimensional?

[SJHillman]

Yes, atoms have a measurable size and all that, but from a *practical* perspective, it's a single point in thickness. As another posted quoted, the atoms behave as if they're in a two dimensional environment. Mathematical concepts don't always translate well into the physical world, but it helps to think of something as being two dimensional if it behaves as if its truly two dimensional.

Re:Two-dimensional?

[Sperbels]

It isn't 2 Dimensional PERIOD

Why not? Is the space we live in not 3 dimensional if there are higher spatial dimensions?

Re:Two-dimensional?

[jeffmeden]

The glass is a mere three atoms thick — the minimum thickness of silica glass—which makes it two-dimensional.

It's not two dimensional if it has a measurable thickness, which you stated in that same sentence. Unless you have a different definition of "two dimensional" than the rest of us.

The space it occupies is certainly 3 dimensional but that doesn't stop it from having properties that only exist in 2 dimensions, such as: if you take this bit off the "top" it is also missing from the "bottom"... To a scientist/researcher, this is an important distinction when the applications all come from combining layers of certain materials. Would you say the visible surface of a piece of paper is a 3 dimensional one? You could answer yes, and you would be pedantically correct, but for any practical purpose the surface is referred to as 2 dimensional.

Re:Two-dimensional?

[iinlane]

It's not two dimensional if it has a measurable thickness, which you stated in that same sentence. Unless you have a different definition of "two dimensional" than the rest of us.

It's two dimensional in sense that the third dimension is insignificantly small relative to other two dimensions e.g. it's flat. Also keep in mind that flat does not mean planar, for example earth is flat in spherical coordinates (r=const).

Re:Two-dimensional?

[Onymous Coward]

The concept of 2D is usable in more than just a mathematical context. In other situations it just means "planar".

The reek you're experiencing is a matter of your own perception rather than something objective. If you over-apply your areas of knowledge, you're being a nerd. A thing is "wrong" if it doesn't conform to the systems you know? You're probably just ignorant of other systems.

Re:Two-dimensional?

[Onymous Coward]

Since the electron clouds are statistical formulations, they theoretically extend to infinity.

That's always a fun idea to mull over.

Re:Two-dimensional?

[unixisc]

Glass is SiO2, isn't it - so there's your 3 atoms right there

Re:Two-dimensional?

[avandesande]

More importantly, it is so thin it is transparent!! ;-)

Re:Two-dimensional?

[Anonymous Coward]

The glass could be described as "wooden".

Re:Two-dimensional?

[sjames]

In the sense of chemical bonds and structure, it is primarily limited to two degrees of freedom, and so, is two dimensional. Much like we call a photograph two dimensional even though photographic paper has a thickness.

Re:Two-dimensional?

[sjames]

Topographically speaking, a cow is a torus. Astrologically speaking, it's a Taurus.

Re:Two-dimensional?

[Anonymous Coward]

rephrase....atomically it is 3D (when looking at each atom). Molecularly (which they appear to be claiming), it is a single layer of molecules. One plane. 2D.

Re:Two-dimensional?

[Khyber]

http://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/525347

It has a size, pal. (scroll left)

Re:Two-dimensional?

[Anonymous Coward]

Dimensional coordinates are purely conceptual. You know what a line is and how to calculate its length. You know what a picture is and how to calculate its area. You know what a box is and how to calculate its volume.

But look at your monitor. You can see lines and squares on there, right? But those lines have both width (you can see that much) and depth, and the squares have depth as well. Their depths are the screen's thickness. Same thing with drawing a dot with a pencil. The graphite left on the page has the width and length of the pencil head, and its depth is the hill of graphite left on the page.

Higher dimensions, such as Time, are just as conceptual as lower dimensions. Time is a measurement between now and now. It doesn't need to be exactly one second, but it isn't a physical thing that you can change. One moment in time has that length of now to now, but if you were to freeze time between the moments you would have nothing, just the same as if you grabbed the space between particles.

Re:Two-dimensional?

[qeveren]

Can't be a standard torus. You forgot about the nostrils.

Re:Two-dimensional?

[treeves]

Topologically, not topographically. Topographically, cows are oval brown spots, but you have to zoom way in to see them.

Re:Two-dimensional?

[treeves]

That's the stoichiometric ratio, but glass is a framework, not a collection of individual SiO2 molecules.

Re:Two-dimensional?

[camperdave]

The glass is a mere three atoms thick — the minimum thickness of silica glass—which makes it two-dimensional.

It's not two dimensional if it has a measurable thickness, which you stated in that same sentence. Unless you have a different definition of "two dimensional" than the rest of us.

It can't be made thinner and remain glass, so within the context of being glass, it is essentially two dimensional.

Re:Two-dimensional?

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, no. An electron is considered a point source, and is believed to essentially have zero radius.

Re:Two-dimensional?

[Khashishi]

It can be treated as 2D in some models, because the structure along one direction is simple enough to be treated as an ignorable direction. Similarly, some aspects of chemistry that occurs in a lipid bilayer can be treated as 2D, not because there is no thickness, but because the thickness isn't a significant degree of freedom for the configurations of molecules in the surface.

Another common reason to make use of a 2D physical model is when one dimension is very large (ideally infinite) and uniform compared to the other two. Then the large dimension can be ignored by using symmetry arguments.

In this usage, 2D means, "can we use two dimensional models to describe this?" and not "does this have zero depth?".

Re:Two-dimensional?

[Z00L00K]

And then it would be interesting to see what properties this thin wafer actually has. There's a chance that this can behave in a different way compared to ordinary glass.

Re:Two-dimensional?

[spauldo]

Space doesn't get that small. Anything smaller than the Planck length can't be measured in any way that is meaningful.

Granted, the radius of an electron is several orders of magnitude larger than the Planck length.

Re:Two-dimensional?

[Sulphur]

Space doesn't get that small. Anything smaller than the Planck length can't be measured in any way that is meaningful.

Granted, the radius of an electron is several orders of magnitude larger than the Planck length.

Planck is orders of magnitude larger than that.

Re:Two-dimensional?

[Anonymous Coward]

So if I were pressed to give an answer as to the thickness of a graphene sheet, not that it would generally matter in any context I'd think of, I'd call it 0.142 nm thick.

I'd be mindful of sigfigs and call it 0.1 nm, since the point of "contact" entirely depends on what material you're trying to squeeze it between. :p

But faced with the same query (and after a similar explanation of how useless the question is), my answer of "thickness" of a graphene sheet would derive from the fact that you can (theoretically, if not practically ;)) "build" graphite out of multiple graphene sheets -- so I'd go with the interlayer spacing of graphite, 0.3nm. (Again, 1 figure, because, though known more precisely for graphite, it's still almost meaningless as a "thickness" of graphene)

Re:Two-dimensional?

[Anonymous Coward]

So, what you mean is that anything smaller than a Planck length still has a length, it just can't be measured?

Look. I understand that there's a lower limit to the size of anything, but if it exists it has three dimensions that are each measured somewhere above 0. Just because the ruler doesn't go that low, it doesn't mean the object doesn't have dimensions.

Re:Two-dimensional?

[spauldo]

No, because at smaller than Planck length, the concept of length starts to get fuzzy and weird. The idea of dimensions at the size also gets weird.

I'm not a physicist, but from what I can tell, distance itself becomes meaningless at that size. If you don't have distance, you don't have dimensions.

Re:Two-dimensional?

[Anonymous Coward]

Here's a link to Wikipedia. Enjoy.

Re:Two-dimensional?

[sjames]

I thought the right word, but my fingers weren't listening :-)

Re:Two-dimensional?

[Anonymous Coward]

They do have a different definition, electrons can only move in two dimensions in this material which allows for a bunch of modeling techniques that only account for two dimensions rather than three. Holy shit, reddit commentary is now infinitely smarter than slashdot.

Re:Two-dimensional?

[Onymous Coward]

That's hot.

Re:Two-dimensional?

[Anonymous Coward]

Graphene is most certainly not .34 nm thick. What you are quoting is the equilibrium spacing between one graphene sheet and the next in crystalline graphite. The true "thickness" of graphene is hard to gauge, actually. If you take the standard model of quantum mechanics, the carbon atoms within graphene are point particles, and therefore have no thickness. It is reasonable, then, to measure the extent of the electron clouds from the carbon. Since the electron clouds are statistical formulations, they theoretically extend to infinity. However, because I'm a materials scientist and not some fancy physicist with a deep, quantitative understanding of electron orbital theory, I would say a good guess is to say that the radius of the electron cloud around a particular atom is about equal to half the bond length between one carbon and the next. In this case, about 0.071 nm.

So if I were pressed to give an answer as to the thickness of a graphene sheet, not that it would generally matter in any context I'd think of, I'd call it 0.142 nm thick.

I thought we weren't supposed to quoted dimensions as "0.142nm"? Surely that should be 142pm?

Re:Two-dimensional?

[Anonymous Coward]

The structure is two-dimensional in that sense that the structural units are spread in two dimensions only.

From the actual article:

"This structure places every atom in a local environment similar to bulk SiO2 in which all bonds are satisfied. Unlike its crystalline analogue, the amorphous 2D silica has a unique structure where tetrahedra are disordered in two dimensions but ordered in the third dimension, where the upper and lower tetrahedra are locked in registry. This structure is therefore a 2D glass in the sense that it is single unit cell thick, analogous to 2D atomic crystals1 such as MoS2 or NbSe2."

OH yay

[Lumpy]

More glass cellphones with easy to break screens and backs!

Re:OH yay

[ackthpt]

More glass cellphones with easy to break screens and backs!

Easy?!? I've pounded on these things with my finger when they don't .. do .. what .. I .. effing .. want I assume you are wearing metal gauntlets, Sir Lumpy of Oatmealshire.

Re:OH yay

[MightyYar]

I usually have to drop mine from 4 feet up onto tile to break them. I'm not sure what could be done to make them survive that reliably and still fit in my pocket.

Re:OH yay

[TWX]

I'm thinking that the tract-home builders will start using this new glass for the windows in the cheapass houses they build...

Re:OH yay

[Phics]

Usually?!? How many phones do you go through, man?

Re:OH yay

[tmosley]

Considering they are sandwiched in graphene, that might actually be better than modern windows. I don't think graphene transmits heat very well across the plain.

Re:OH yay

[Anonymous Coward]

Engineering something to survive that reliably isn't that hard, but you need to make certain concessions on things like screen size, or the size of the bezel around the screen.

Case in point, I have an LG C710h. Known as the Aloha in the US, and the Shine Plus in Canada. I cannot count the number of times I have dropped that phone from varying heights... the most egregious such fall was a fall from a 3rd floor balcony, bouncing off the plastic edge of a swimming pool, and a dip in the drink, recovered a couple of minutes later by a plucky 10-year old who was swimming at the time, and heard me shout something that wasn't repeatable in polite company. The only outside damage to the phone was a bit of a scar on one of the corners. The phone still works, and while I am considering replacing it, it's not because it's broken, it's because the 600MHz processor in it is a bit sluggish after I upgraded it to Gingerbread.

I've no doubt that if it had landed on the concrete instead of the flexible plastic, the phone would have been done for, but I'm equally certain that an iPhone would never have survived the drop. You *can* engineer something to survive a drop like that, but you need to make certain concessions that Apple isn't willing to make.

posting anon because I don't want to undo moderation.

Re:OH yay

[TWX]

How about sound though? When we put in the new dual-pane windows at the previous house we had a marked drop in external sound inside the house.

As close together as many modern tract homes are, I wouldn't want to hear my neighbor fart like I fear would be the case.

Re:OH yay

[mcgrew]

That's why I want a Razr -- gorilla glass front and kevlar back. Too bad you have to get on T-Mobile to get one, though :(

Re:OH yay

[Anonymous Coward]

Make the screens from transparent aluminum instead of curved glass.

Re:OH yay

[amRadioHed]

You mean Verizon? If it was on T-Mobile I'd be very tempted to get one.

Re:OH yay

[sjames]

For some reason, you made me picture your house surrounded by your neighbor's very special stereo system preparing to annoy you greatly drawn in a sort of Dr. Seuss meets Mad Magazine style.

Finally, a practical use for the sub-woofer.

Re:OH yay

[ibutsu]

I actually had my V3 Razr get run over by a Volvo station wagon, the outer screen was toast but the rest was fine, still works to this day.

Re:OH yay

[tmosley]

That sounds like a neat experiment. I have no idea how sound would propagate through graphene in any direction.

Re:OH yay

[Lumpy]

Your fingers are fleshy sausages. That is why it does not break.

and no I have not worn gauntlets while using my iphone cince they went out of style in California. Nobody wears gauntlets after June, it's a fashion faux pas to do so.

you are supposed wear fingerless gloves made of silk after june, thus the lack of breakage on glass phones.

Re:OH yay

[Lumpy]

I work with him, he breaks about 6 a week, he refuses to stop putting them in his shirt pocket. Problem is IT does not realize that we have completely ran through the stock of 27 iphones we had in case of breakage.

Also?

[Geoffrey.landis]

"...an air leak caused the copper to react with the quartz, which is also made of silicon and oxygen,"

"Also"?

Copper is not made of silicon and oxygen. Graphite is not made of silicon and oxygen. What do you mean by "also"?

Re:Also?

[Aladrin]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quartz "It is made up of a continuous framework of SiO4 silicon–oxygen tetrahedra, with each oxygen being shared between two tetrahedra, giving an overall formula SiO2."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silicon_dioxide "Silica is used primarily in the production of glass for windows, drinking glasses, beverage bottles, and many other uses."

Glass and quartz.

Re:Also?

[Anonymous Coward]

Quartz

Re:Also?

[Anonymous Coward]

"The glass, made of silicon and oxygen"

and

"quartz, which is also made of silicon and oxygen".

Not that hard.

Re:Also?

[Geoffrey.landis]

Glass and quartz.

Glass that consists of nothing other than silicon and oxygen-- chemically known as "silica"-- is referred to as "quartz".

When they say they grew the material in "quartz" tubes, they mean: tubes made of silica glass. (Mineralogists reserve the word for only crystalline silica, but when they say a quartz tube, it's quartz glass, i.e. silica, not the mineral.) When they say that the substrate was "copper-covered quartz" they mean: "copper-covered silica glass". When they say they made glass consisting of two atoms of oxygen and one atom of silicon, they mean: silica glass.

So: they're saying that silica glass is silicon and oxygen, and, also, so is silica glass.

Re:Also?

[Garble Snarky]

Quartz has a regular crystal structure, glass doesn't.

A new property of graphene...

[plerner]

it can also create very thin glass! Go graphene!

Re:A new property of graphene...

[ackthpt]

it can also create very thin glass! Go graphene!

Computer! I bring up the molecular structure for Transparent Grapheneium!

We miss you, Mr. Scott

I hate to break it to them...

[Shoten]

...but I think an old landlord of mine managed to do this, many years ago.

Re:I hate to break it to them...

[Prod_Deity]

Wish I had mod points. Looks like we had the same slum lord

So...

[NevergoldMel]

How long before they broke it?

Serendipity

[Anonymous Coward]

Serendipity showing its hand in science once again.

This is just great!

[Haxagon]

Now I'll have to keep kids from breathing on my windows, much less throwing a baseball through them!

You know what they say...

[nairnr]

Those people in atomic glass houses really shouldn't throw anything!

Are there any practical applications?

[mark-t]

While it might sound all cool and stuff to make glass that thin, is there any practical applications for it? Or is this just one of those weird inventions that serves no real purpose but to satisfy intellectual or scientific curiosity?

Re:Are there any practical applications?

[SJHillman]

While you post comments, do you read the summary at all? Or do you just read the first few letters and decide to post your thoughts?

"Such ultra-thin glass could be used in semiconductor or graphene transistors."

Re:Are there any practical applications?

[daktari]

I'm sure we'll invent something for this invention.

Re:Are there any practical applications?

[Anonymous Coward]

Ah cmon, that sentence was SIX whole sentences into the summary. You can't expect someone to read that much before posting something stupid.

Re:Are there any practical applications?

[imboboage0]

I'm thinking it could be used as an insulator sandwiched inside of something. Don't know of any actual uses like that, but I'm sure someone else can come up with one.

Re:Are there any practical applications?

[mattr]

It is said the most amazing discoveries come from a scientist saying "gee that's funny..."

By accidentally producing this very cool new material they have according to the abstract made the first electron microscopy of glass, allowed by this very thin layer being supported by but not bonded to the underlying graphite. And from the amazing picture they took, which amazingly resembles drawings made by a glass theorist 80 years ago, they were able to make calculations showing that the weak van der waals force is what's keeping this thing stable.

It is a totally awesome thing they found and probably gives them whole new ideas about how to grow thin 2d structures. Just a week ago there was another bit of news about awesome 2d ice channels in graphite that open and close to keep helium from going through them. Sounds like there are tons of totally awesome things that are possible in these crenulated 2d realms and graphite is helping us discover them.

Perhaps someone else here can theorize about what it all means.

Re:Are there any practical applications?

[PPH]

Screens for the next generation of iPads?

Re:Are there any practical applications?

[Anonymous Coward]

And now, it will be patented and they're years of research into the production of minimal thickness glass will be rewarded...huh? They weren't trying to do this? Oh, nevermind.

Re:Are there any practical applications?

[Anonymous Coward]

tl;dr

Re:Are there any practical applications?

[Anonymous Coward]

> Perhaps someone else here can theorize about what it all means.

Two words: Time Travel

Re:Are there any practical applications?

[treeves]

I'm thinking that the leakage through such a thin layer of oxide would make it useless as an insulator in transistors.

Re:Are there any practical applications?

[Sulphur]

I'm thinking that the leakage through such a thin layer of oxide would make it useless as an insulator in transistors.

Maybe one could do a tunneling junction.

Re:Are there any practical applications?

[mcgrew]

Practical applications for new materials and other discoveries are seldom apparent at first. Even new inventions. Fifteen years ago everyone was asking me "why on earth do you have a computer?" When Edison invented voice recording, there were no practical applications for that, either, until Bell turned the wax cylinder into a shellack disk and people started listening to records.

And what's wrong for discovery for the sake of discovery? I'll bet you think astronomy is a wasted science and never should be funded, too.

It boggles the mind that a comment like that would show up on slashdot, of all places. WTF???

Re:Are there any practical applications?

[MarkRose]

Two words: DOUBLE RAINBOWS!

Re:Are there any practical applications?

[sound vision]

Theorizing...

It is a totally awesome thing they found and probably gives them whole new ideas about how to grow thin 2d structures. Just a week ago there was another bit of news about awesome 2d ice channels in graphite that open and close to keep helium from going through them.

This reminds me a bit of a transistor...

Perhaps all these ways we're figuring out to manipulate things on an atomic scale will have some payoff in computing. It could be as simple as smaller fab processes for conventional computer chips. It could be evolutionary advancements of current chip technology, that's somehow augmented by using this new atom-level manipulation. Or it could mean revolutionary advancements, like quantum computing or some as-of-yet unimagined computing paradigm.

How tall are you?

[Haxagon]

You must have never dropped an iPhone 4/S from a foot up on something that isn't memory foam.

Re:How tall are you?

[DrgnDancer]

My wife dropped hers from chest height, (Probably around 4 feet, she's a fairly tall woman) onto a a train track rail. We were fully expecting to have our next stop be the AT&T store, but the phone was completely undamaged. I'm not saying they're indestructible, but they seem study enough for day to day use.

Re:How tall are you?

[ackthpt]

You must have never dropped an iPhone 4/S from a foot up on something that isn't memory foam.

Try leaving it on top of the car and then driving away -- hearing a clatter -- thinking 'um where's the phone?' and going back to find it -- fully functional, just some case scratches. Done it not, once, but twice.

BTW, there's some great news on Alzheimers Research in a following news post. Hope they get this sorted before I really need it. Ok.. I have the phone, but where's the car?

Re:How tall are you?

[flink]

I've dropped my iPhone 4 from 5' up and watched it bounce down half a flight of concrete steps to no ill effect. On the other hand, my girlfriend had hers fall 6" from her breast pocket while she was bending over to pick up her car keys and the screen complete shattered. They build these things out of some pretty amazing materials and they do their best to make them hardy, but when it comes down to it you are still rolling the dice when you drop one.

Re:How tall are you?

[isorox]

My wife dropped hers from chest height, (Probably around 4 feet, she's a fairly tall woman) onto a a train track rail

And a train ran over it?

Re:How tall are you?

[spauldo]

I did that once. I couldn't find it. I did find the rubber case cover though, and gave it to the clerk at Radio Shack (she had an iPhone) when I bought my Android. That rubber case cover was why the phone didn't fly off 'til I was going 75 down highway 412.

I missed my contacts, but other than that I didn't miss the phone. My HTC has a plastic case cover, so maybe next time I leave my phone on the car it'll fall off before I'm out of the parking lot.

Sucker.

[Haxagon]

I'll be spending my money on the iPad5S, four atoms and a suspended quark thick! Have fun wasting your money!

Re:Sucker.

[treeves]

iPad X will be three atoms thick, with a protective coating of Higgs bosons on both sides, hand made by people in China with desktop LHCs.

Re:Sucker.

[kenboldt]

iPad X will be three atoms thick, with a protective coating of Higgs bosons on both sides, hand made by people in China with desktop LHCs.

wouldn't they be SHCs?

Re:Sucker.

[treeves]

Of course not. They're colliding large hadrons.

So, is it worth somethin' to ya?

[Anonymous Coward]

....or should I just punch up 'Clear'?

If it's three atoms thick...

[idbeholda]

It isn't two dimensional. Period. In fact, anything with mass in the universe (and I'm willing to bet money on it) is three dimensional. The only exception to this are the members of Westboro Baptist Church, but that kinda goes without saying.

Re:If it's three atoms thick...

[pavon]

If I draw a picture on a piece of paper, we call that drawing two-dimensional despite the fact that the graphite and pulp that is formed with have thickness. Likewise, if a crystal only grows along a plane (rather than in three dimensions), then that crystalline structure is two-dimensional, even though the crystal itself is a three dimensional object. This is the same thing, the sheet of glass is three-dimensional, but the structure of the amorphous solid is two-dimensional.

Re:If it's three atoms thick...

[DrgnDancer]

This was already said and responded to. Apparently the material is (obviously) not mathematically two dimensional, but there's also a physical concept of 2D which involves a material having reached its absolute minimum thinness. The molecules in glass are three atoms thick, therefore the thinnest possible glass is three atoms thick. According to the physical definition of 2D, this material is.

Re:If it's three atoms thick...

[idbeholda]

If the object itself is three dimensional, it's a physical impossibility for the structure to also be two dimensional. A two dimensional structure has NO THICKNESS WHATSOEVER. What you're describing is the mollecular bond of the crystalline structure running along the same plane. That's not a two dimensional object, there, buddy, that's a FLAT SURFACE. Big difference. Am I going senila or are the basic laws that govern our universe really that difficult to grasp? Fuck, if this is our future...

Re:If it's three atoms thick...

[idbeholda]

Well, excuse me for hitting the "end" button when I loaded the page. In the meantime, why don't you read something relevant to the laws of the universe AND the discussion instead of arguing with fallacy and half-baked theoretical conjecture. Incidentally, physical concepts are ENTIRELY mathematical, in case you haven't been paying attention in class.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dimension#In_physics

Enjoy.

Only a few more years...

[eternaldoctorwho]

...until transparent aluminum!

There's got to be a way...

[genghisjahn]

...to work in a "transparent aluminum" joke and get another +5 funny out of this. Think damnit, think!

Re:There's got to be a way...

[itsdapead]

In an earlier version of the script, the crew travel back in time to rescue the sperm whale, rather than the humpback whale, but due to an unfortunate communications error they end up trying to make a very small glass tank...

Re:There's got to be a way...

[chuckugly]

Aluminum Oxide, AKA Sapphire, is transparent aluminum.

Feynman diagram

[Anonymous Coward]

this would be great for testing refraction of monochromatic light in terms of QED.

MOS transistors?

[scharkalvin]

Might this be a good for improving MOS transistors (gate/channel insulator)?

Hello computer...

[micahjc]

A keyboard! How quaint.

Quartz Re:Also?

[Geoffrey.landis]

"Quartz has a regular crystal structure, glass doesn't."

If you're a mineralogist. Try looking up "quartz glass" or "fused quartz" in google.

Re:Quartz Re:Also?

[Garble Snarky]

Ok, so there are several "isomers" of silica? Don't they all have different properties? What's the problem with distinguishing between them? I don't see how making this distinction is very different than making the distinction between diamond and graphene.

Pane of glass or coating?

[AbrasiveCat]

Not having access to the full article I can't tell, but there is a big difference between coating a copper layer (on silica) with another layer of very thin silica and a pane of glass, which I would think is a stand alone structure. Anyone know? Still quite neat.

Silicon and Oxygen?

[gsgriffin]

Sounds like the glass is half full to me.

Re:Silicon and Oxygen?

[zammer990]

1/3 full actually, the tetrahedra that make up silica glass are 2/3 silica.

Lightsabers

[Anonymous Coward]

Being 3mm thick, it can cut things.
Being glass, should be transparent.
Add a handle and a LED so you can see it (and don't cut yourself) and you might have your very own light saber.

They can't Patent this right ?

[Anonymous Coward]

They didnt invent it and its not real because it is only 2D so it cant exist,
you cant patent something like that... right ? right ?

Did I mention I have been up over 24 hours ?
w.. wat ?
who?

Serious question:

[mcgrew]

What's the chemical difference between regular glass and Gorilla Glass? How thin could you make Gorilla Glass? How strong woud it be at its thinnest?

Re:Serious question:

[Pope]

Gorilla Glass is made out of gorillas, like Girl Scout cookies.

Re:Serious question:

[Anonymous Coward]

Girl Scout cookies are made out of gorillas?

Re:Serious question:

[Anonymous Coward]

Girl scout cookies are made out of gorillas? You coulda fooled me.

Re:Serious question:

[Anonymous Coward]

It's a little known fact that "Girl Scouts" is the colloquialism of "Gorilla Scouts" that has gained common usage, so yes, Girl Scout cookies are in fact made from gorillas. The ones made from girl gorillas are known to be of higher quality, and are sold only in specialty markets (Beverly Hills, etc...), Most of what you can buy in the midwest come from a mixed batch, manufactured in China and shipped back over...

Re:Serious question:

[Anonymous Coward]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gorilla_Glass

The glass is toughened by ion exchange. It is placed in a hot bath of molten potassium salt at a temperature of approximately 400 C (~750 F). Smaller sodium ions leave the glass, and larger potassium ions from the salt bath replace them. These larger ions take up more room and are pressed together when the glass cools, producing a layer of compressive stress on the surface of the glass. Gorilla Glass's special composition enables the potassium ions to diffuse far into the surface, creating high compressive stress deep into the glass. This layer of compression creates a surface that is more resistant to damage from everyday use. Like all glass, Gorilla glass can be recycled.[2]

If you are unfamiliar with basic materials science and/or physics, the inherent compressive stress resists the tensile stresses encountered in everyday use. It does make it weaker against compressive loads, but material capacity for compression is much higher than tension.

Re:Serious question:

[tchdab1]

And baby powder.

Dupe Dupe Dupe

[sexconker]

http://slashdot.org/firehose.pl?op=view&id=28788557

Make a capacitor?

[Anonymous Coward]

So can they put graphene on both sides and make us a new super capacitor?

Re:Two-dimensional? !!!!!!

[Anonymous Coward]

Thousands of hours and dollars spent to learn a stereo type education, compared to a fluke or failure in the process of an experiment --------priceless!!!!!!!

mnemonic

[erdraug]

I was hoping for a monofilament wire :(

GMSc

[Anonymous Coward]

You gotta love happy accidents! :)