From: Matthew Brown <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Date: 22 October 2004 10:56:14 AM PDT Subject: Scientists make atom-thick sheet of graphite
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/10/21/two_dimensional_carbon/
An international team of scientists has made a new material just one atom
thick, by extracting a single plane of carbon from a graphite crystal. Known
as graphene, the new fabric effectively exists in just two dimensions, and
could pave the way for computers built from single molecules.
In the latest edition of Science, published tomorrow, the scientists from
Manchester University and Chernogolovka, Russia, explain that the atomic
sheet is a fullerene molecule. Fullerenes are a class of carbon molecules
discovered in the last twenty years. The first, the famous football-shaped
Carbon-60 molecule, was named for architect Buckminster Fuller, because of
its resemblance to his geodesic dome structures.
The sheet of atoms is highly flexible, stable and strong and demonstrates
remarkable conductivity. Manchester University's Professor Andre Geim says
that qualities like this have been found so far only in nanotubes. "As
carbon nanotubes are basically made from rolled-up narrow stripes of
graphene, any of the thousands of applications currently considered for
nanotubes renowned for their unique properties can also apply to graphene
itself," he said.
Although the samples they have studied are mere microns across, the
researchers found that the electrons will travel across the material without
scattering over submicron distances - ideal for building very fast switching
transistors. The researchers have even managed to demonstrate an ambipolar
field effect transistor (a transistor commonly used to amplify a weak
signal, such as a wireless signal) that works under ambient conditions.
Geim adds that there is some way to go still before the material can
legitimately be considered the next big thing. Currently, the samples are
tens of microns across, but for real engineering, the scientist says wafers
will need to be a few inches in size.
However, Dr. Novoselov, Geim's counterpart at Chernogolovka, is optimistic:
"Only ten years ago carbon nanotubes were less than a micron long. Now,
scientists can make nanotubes several centimetres long, and similar progress
can reasonably be expected for carbon nanofabric too." ®
