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."
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
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.
You are correct that using graphene or carbon nanotubes (which are close cousins) only for the wiring wouldn't gain you much; especially since large resistances can arise from the junctions between two conductors/materials.
People are certainly investigating how to turn graphene and nanotubes into transistors. There have been demonstrations of using an applied voltage to mechanically 'kink' a nanotube so that its resistance changes. Thus it can be used as a non-volatile memory element. (The kinking is reversible and fast.) Others have looked into ways to 'dope' graphene by controlling what material it is sitting on top of (which changes its electrical properties, similar to doping atoms into silicon). Things like this can be used to make transistors out of these carbon nanomaterials; and in principle to do it in a way where the conducting carbon network is unbroken.
Of course, the devil is in the details. We've seen demonstrations of many pieces of the puzzle, but turning it all into a technology (where you can build it all easily on a single substrate, in a scalable way, etc.) is still a ways off. But there is at least a chance these materials will pan out.
P.S.: Don't let this comment distract from the legitimate outcry against Slashdot Beta.
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!