Slashdot Mirror
Graphene Conducts Electricity Ten Times Better Than Expected
ananyo writes "Physicists have produced nanoribbons of graphene — the single-atom-thick carbon — that conduct electrons better than theory predicted even for the most idealized form of the material (abstract). The finding could help graphene realize its promise in high-end electronics, where researchers have long hoped it could outperform traditional materials such as silicon. In graphene, electrons can move faster than in any other material at room temperature. But techniques that cut sheets of graphene into the narrow ribbons needed to form wires of a nano-scale circuit leave ragged edges, which disrupt the electron flow. Now a team led by physicist Walt de Heer at the Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta has made ribbons that conduct electric charges for more than 10 micrometres without meeting resistance — 1,000 times farther than in typical graphene nanoribbons. The ribbons made by de Heer's team in fact conduct electrons ten times better than standard theories of electron transport they should, say the authors."
Beta turned me into a newt!
Yes, Altslashdot.org while the name is only tentative and a better name will replace it, it is a greenlight project and has already gotten a lot of interest. DICE killed what was good about slashdot (the community) and the people have spoken, they want the old slashdot and the people are making it happen. Slashdot was FOR the people by the people and that's what project altslashdot is about.
DICE will without a doubt go in their own direction and with that said, they don't care about its current audience but want to tailor to a broader but bigger audience. We get it, it's for the money, not for the people. Ultimately those that were around for a long time will likely want a new home which seems pretty understandable after the mistreatment. It's up to the community to decide but we'll see how it goes. Good luck dice!
Very much so and thanks for your contribution. DICE will not listen, but altslashdot.org will listen. The name is tentative but the goal is clear: community first.
Yeah, right, don't you mean community first until the community doesn't like something that owner/provider doesn't like?
If altslashdot.org users start posting porn, will that be acceptable? If they decide only whites or males should be allowed to post, will that be acceptable? The moment you post rules, you have dimminished community first, even if the community votes on them. Why? because future members of the community don't get a chance to vote on them, so really what you have is founders first, not community first.
I am skeptical about such an extraordinary claim.
Side note: Please, stop with the "fuck beta" campaign; I find this campaign FAR MORE DISRUPTIVE to the enjoyment of /. than the beta itself. Get over Yourselves already.
While it is interesting to see the advances with graphene, if used to make super fast computers, isn't the "wiring" on the chip only a small part of the problem? Have they found a way to make the transistors and resistors and parts on the chip out of graphene? If not, wouldn't the speed improvements be nonexistent? It would seem that it would be like taking a super highway and bringing all the traffic down to one lane at the exits (or maybe a bridge in NJ).
I feel the loss of the comment threads as much as you jellomizer. Which is exactly what this whole thing is about. The new site model nukes the existing message board structure.
Rather than see these as off topic posts, spamming the message boards, try the perspective that there is only one topic until this issue is resolved to the communities satisfaction and that these comments are in fact using the message boards for their intended purpose: maintaining a moderated discussion guided by the consensus generated by the readership.
These posts have become the most effective manner of communicating to the correct authority. The correct authority in this case is the broad readership, some of whom are just learning about this. The other authority is the controlling entities who have thus far made some poor choices about not responding to the communities posts in the designated channels. Therefore this is the next step in a spectrum of responses.
I personally apologize to you for the necessity of this step which has been provoked by the site operators. I do hope things change quickly, since I love slashdot. I am slashdot.
Graphene has very high conductivity for what it is: a monoatomic layer. This is important in ICs where certain material thicknesses are in the nanometres. Also graphene has a very specific and uniform thickness, which solves uniformity problem when trying to deposit 1 nm material uniformly across 300 mm wafers. But when you can afford to increase the thickness (in macroscopic systems), metals become much more conductive than "macroscopic grahene," which is just regular graphite and is not so conductive. Actually graphite is used as electronic resistors and in certain heater elements (as it is conductive enough to pass large currents, but resistive enough to heat a lot by Joule effect and finally stands very well high temperatures).
I can assure you it's not the same AC over and over because AC comments are throttled by IP address.
However, if slashdot dies because of this, it won't be because of Dice. It will be because like the dinosaurs, we couldn't adapt.
Why should we have to adapt to garbage? I don't think anyone would refuse to adapt to a new paint scheme, it's the fact that the new site is fundamentally and functionally broken by design. The fact that dice felt now was a good time to start forcing users to something so broken shows that they have a fundamental misunderstanding of what this place is about. It's not that the beta site is a little buggy, it's that it is completely broken.
At the very least they should have waited until commenting was at functional parity before revealing their hand but now it's too late, they have revealed the direction of things to come and it does not bode well for the future of the slashdot.org domain.
I, for one, am looking forward to the inevitable
For people who claim that science is wrong/bad/not complete - this is the kind of thing that research and study can do.
The expected result was off by 10x. This doesn't mean that science sucks - but rather there is a new question to be answered that will allow us to understand the world just a little bit better.
AWESOME.
Yeah, Beta is like world destroying comet, and we the inhabitants of that world.
The real question is, in what way does the fucking beta make slashdot better? Just take one example, the ridiculous amount of whitespace around posts. That's millions of monitors burning electricity displaying absolutely nothing. Secondly, because so little information is displayed, there will be a lot more scrolling required. That will contribute to wrist and elbow problems for those who don't yet have them, and for people like me who do, aggravate them.
Fucking beta is killing the planet and it's bad for your health. So yeah -- dinos like me are gonna bitch. Suck it up.
What changed under Obama? Nothing Good
The fast majority of the F*ck Beta comments are coming from ACs. For all we know that could be a single individual or even a bot.
No, actually, I've been surprised by the number of real posts here against the beta, some of them with some incredibly low UID's. Much as I hate the beta, even I never expected such an overwhelming response (and, believe me, I've been around here a lot longer than my UID would indicate).
The cow says "Moo." The dog says "Woof." The Timothy says "Thanks, valued customer. We appreciate your input."
These comments are Slashdot's response. The management-speak in the Beta article is Dice's. They made it perfectly clear that, even after all this backlash, Classic will soon be gone:
Most importantly, we want you to know that Classic Slashdot isn't going away until we're confident that the new site is ready.
I, too, am here for the intelligent discussion. So I do apologize. But Dice ignores our complaints, while pretending to listen. Ruining every single discussion is the only option we have left.
Beta will be gone when they put it in full Production.
It doesn't matter if Beta leaves or not, most of slashdot's posters will be gone when Classic is gone. I will be. If they keep Classic as an option it won't matter, we'll stay. The issue is their getting rid of Classic, not the existence of Beta.
Instead of being an ass, Clearly post your issues to the correct authority, instead of spamming the message boards over and over again.
It's a protest. Lets hope it's effective. I posted in the page about beta and several user journals decrying Beta, wrote a journal about it myself and wrote an email telling slashdot how much beta sucks. Answering positively to anti-beta comments may annoy you, but I think it's important and needs to be done.
Meanwhile, I'll be looking for an alternate site. In a year this place will be as empty as kuro5hin.
Free Martian Whores!
Try using bold or italics or posting a link. Try to find the URL of a comment. Log off and try to log back in, I couldn't log in at work (they use IE7).
No, they added nothing of value and removed much of value. Does Microsoft own Dice?
Free Martian Whores!
It's not a mere redesign, it's a fundamental change in the way slashdot works by changing what slashdot is all about. They should have waited until things actually worked before revealing the beta, but as it is, by forcing users to the fundamentally broken beta site they've shown that they no longer care about the community.
Forcing users to a completely unusable site shows nothing but contempt for the users.
I, for one, am looking forward to the inevitable
I didn't realize what the hub bub is about until I clicked on the beta link. I'm not even the picky type and all I could say is wow this sucks!
Hey slashdot, keep the javascript-free version.
It's been decades since I took solid state physics courses, but here's what I remember.
Conducting solid, like metal, is modeled as a single monolithic entity as opposed to a set of individual elemental atoms. Each atom's high(est) energy electrons become "free" electrons that can move about the whole solid with minimum provocation (i.e., voltage). So when electric field or voltage is applied across the solid, these free electrons bunch up towards positive charge - i.e. the "skin" you referred to.
Because, you know, electrons have a negative charge. Haha.
So when voltage is applied to the solid, and there is a route out of the solid towards positive charge, the free electrons will move that way. If there is also a route into the solid through which new (to the solid) electrons move in, then you have a circuit where electrons flow in and out of the solid (as you say) along the skin, and hence you have current.
That's what I remember of the simple version of solid state model that look at solid's free electrons as a group. Because the free electrons are treated as a group, it doesn't deal with whether the electron that just popped out are new (to the solid) one or the last one in line - the model doesn't give individuality to each electrons.
Not sure it answers your question adequately, but that's what popped into my head. Maybe others will do a more proper job.
Like I was saying, KEEP THE JAVASCRIPT-FREE SLASHDOT, you dirtbags! :-)
Fuck systemd. Fuck Redhat. Fuck Soylent, too. Wait, scratch the last one.
The electrons are always moving, and fast, very fast, on all directions, with a zero average speed. Electrical current appears when their average velocity goes slightly above zero.
It's not one electron bouncing in another that causes the movement, all electrons are equaly pushed by a potential. Bouncing is one of the causes of resistivity. What this istudy did was reducing bouncing to the point it become negligible, with the expected impact on resistivity.
I hope that answers. It's like none of your options.
Rethinking email
The real question is, in what way does the fucking beta make slashdot better?
More room for ads. That's the only thing that anyone could say is better about BETA. FUCK, ASS! Sorry, meds wearing off. This sight has a distinctive look that should not be dismissed given the seeming proclivity to make the site look like a crappy copy of Engadget.com. FUCK BETA, ASS! It's look and feel are its brand identity. Anyone with half a semester of Marketing 101 would know this. FUCK, FUCK FUCK BETA! And the idiots that said, "Yes, let's do that!" Tards!