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Using one of the world’s most powerful sources of man-made radiation, physicists from UC San Diego, Columbia University and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory have uncovered new secrets about the properties of graphene—a form of pure carbon that may one day replace the silicon in computers, televisions, mobile phones and other common electronic devices. A schematic of the graphenedevice and infrared measurement. Credit: UCSD Graphene—a single layer of carbon atoms arranged in a honeycombed lattice—has a number of advantages over silicon. Because it is an optically transparent conductor of electricity, graphene could be used to replace current liquid crystal displays that...

Graphene is the strongest material in the world, according to new experiments done by researchers at Columbia University in the US. The secret to the material's extraordinary strength, says the team, lies in the robustness of the covalent carbon-carbon bond and the fact that the graphene monolayers tested were defect-free. Since "wonder material" graphene - sheets of carbon just one atom thick - was discovered in 2004, it has been shown to be an extremely good electrical conductor; a semiconductor that can be used to create transistors; and a very strong material. But now, Columbia University's James Hone, Jeffrey Kysar,...

Manchester, UK (SPX) Apr 22, 2008 Researchers have used the world's thinnest material to create the world's smallest transistor, one atom thick and ten atoms wide. Reporting their peer-reviewed findings in the latest issue of the journal Science, Dr Kostya Novoselov and Professor Andre Geim from The School of Physics and Astronomy at The University of Manchester show that graphene can be carved into tiny electronic circuits with individual transistors having a size not much larger than that of a molecule. The smaller the size of their transistors the better they perform, say the Manchester researchers. In recent decades, manufacturers...

By Darren Waters Technology editor, BBC News website Dr Leonid Ponomarenko shows off a device with the transistor embedded Researchers have built the world's smallest transistor - one atom thick and 10 atoms wide - out of a material that could one day replace silicon. The transistor, essentially an on/off switch, has been made using graphene, a two-dimensional material first discovered only four years ago. Graphene is a single layer of graphite, which is found in the humble pencil. The transistor is the key building block of microchips and the basis for almost all electronics. Dr Kostya Novoselov and...

Graphene Gazing Gives Glimpse Of Foundations Of Universe ScienceDaily (Apr. 4, 2008) — Researchers at The University of Manchester have used graphene to measure an important and mysterious fundamental constant - and glimpse the foundations of the universe. The researchers from The School of Physics and Astronomy, led by Professor Andre Geim, have found that the world's thinnest material absorbs a well-defined fraction of visible light, which allows the direct determination of the fine structure constant. The universe and life on this planet are intimately controlled by several exact numbers; so-called fundamental or universal constants such as the speed of...

Presto chango! Dumping graphene oxide particles in water (top) causes them to begin binding together spontaneously into superstrong sheets.Credit: Rod Ruoff Researchers have developed a remarkably simple way to convert ordinary graphite particles into very thin but superstrong sheets that are tougher than steel and as flexible as carbon fiber but can be made much more cheaply. The discovery could spawn entirely new types of materials for applications as diverse as protective coatings, electronic components, batteries, and fuel cells. For tensile strength and stiffness, carbon is king. So it's no surprise that scientists have been working for years to develop...

In 1995, a small fleet of innovative electric buses began running along 15-minute routes through a park at the northern end of Moscow. A decade later, a few dozen seaport cranes in Asia, a couple of light-rail trains in Europe, and a battalion of garbage trucks in the United States have joined their high-tech ranks. A smattering of mass-transit vehicles and industrial machines may seem like one wimpy revolution, but revolutionary they are. Unlike most of their electric relatives, these vehicles all share one key attribute: they don't run on batteries. Instead, they are powered by ultracapacitors, which are souped-up...

Already new materials are creeping into modern chips. As components have shrunk critical elements of the transistors, known as gate dielectrics, do not perform as well allowing currents passing through the transistors to leak, reducing the effectiveness of the chip. To overcome this, companies have replaced the gate dielectrics, previously made from silicon dioxide, with an oxide based on the metal hafnium. The material's development and integration into working components has been described by Dr Moore as "the biggest change in transistor technology" since the late 1960s. But IBM researchers are working on materials that they believe offer even bigger...

Atomic-Sized Graphene Double Layer Holds Nanoelectronics Promise YORKTOWN HEIGHTS, NY, Mar 06, 2008 (MARKET WIRE via COMTEX) -- IBM Researchers today announced a discovery that combats one of the industry's most perplexing problems in using graphite -- the same material found inside pencils -- as a material for building nanoelectonic circuits vastly smaller than those found in today's silicon based computer chips. For the first time anywhere, IBM scientists have found a way to suppress unwanted interference of electrical signals created when shrinking graphene, a two-dimensional, single-atomic layer thick form of graphite, to dimensions just a few atoms long. Scientists...

Graphene is a single planar sheet of sp2-bonded carbon atoms that are densely packed in a honeycomb crystal lattice. It can also be viewed as an atomic-scale chicken wire made of carbon atoms and their bonds. The carbon-carbon bond length in graphene is approximately 1.42 Å. From a physicist point of view, graphene is the basic structural element for all other graphitic materials including graphite, carbon nanotubes and fullerenes. For a chemist, graphene is an infinitely large aromatic molecule, an extension of a family of flat polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons called graphenes. University of Maryland physicists have shown that in...

Scientists slice graphite into atom-thick sheets By Lucy Sherriff Published Thursday 21st October 2004 23:29 GMT 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...