Inventors Of New Material, Graphene, Gets Nobel Prize In Physics 2010

[Tormod]

The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences has decided to award the Nobel Prize in Physics for 2010 to

 

Andre Geim

University of Manchester, UK

 

and

 

Konstantin Novoselov

University of Manchester, UK

 

"for groundbreaking experiments regarding the two-dimensional material graphene"

 

Graphene – the perfect atomic lattice

A thin flake of ordinary carbon, just one atom thick, lies behind this year’s Nobel Prize in Physics. Andre Geim and Konstantin Novoselov have shown that carbon in such a flat form has exceptional properties that originate from the remarkable world of quantum physics.

 

Graphene is a form of carbon. As a material it is completely new – not only the thinnest ever but also the strongest. As a conductor of electricity it performs as well as copper. As a conductor of heat it outperforms all other known materials. It is almost completely transparent, yet so dense that not even helium, the smallest gas atom, can pass through it. Carbon, the basis of all known life on earth, has surprised us once again.

 

Geim and Novoselov extracted the graphene from a piece of graphite such as is found in ordinary pencils. Using regular adhesive tape they managed to obtain a flake of carbon with a thickness of just one atom. This at a time when many believed it was impossible for such thin crystalline materials to be stable.

 

However, with graphene, physicists can now study a new class of two-dimensional materials with unique properties. Graphene makes experiments possible that give new twists to the phenomena in quantum physics. Also a vast variety of practical applications now appear possible including the creation of new materials and the manufacture of innovative electronics. Graphene transistors are predicted to be substantially faster than today’s silicon transistors and result in more efficient computers.

 

Since it is practically transparent and a good conductor, graphene is suitable for producing transparent touch screens, light panels, and maybe even solar cells.

 

When mixed into plastics, graphene can turn them into conductors of electricity while making them more heat resistant and mechanically robust. This resilience can be utilised in new super strong materials, which are also thin, elastic and lightweight. In the future, satellites, airplanes, and cars could be manufactured out of the new composite materials.

 

This year’s Laureates have been working together for a long time now. Konstantin Novoselov, 36, first worked with Andre Geim, 51, as a PhD-student in the Netherlands. He subsequently followed Geim to the United Kingdom. Both of them originally studied and began their careers as physicists in Russia. Now they are both professors at the University of Manchester.

 

Playfulness is one of their hallmarks, one always learns something in the process and, who knows, you may even hit the jackpot. Like now when they, with graphene, write themselves into the annals of science.

 

Source: Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences

[MadIce]

Thanks Tormod. As a computer hardware nerd I am excited about news like this. In February 2010 IBM created a prototype of transistors with an on and off rate of 100 GHz using graphene. That was already good news, because we are soon reaching the limits of how small conventional silicon chips can go. Graphene would allow a significant performance increase beyond the limits of silicon. The fact that graphene is now high lighted by a Nobel prize may give developments in that area and its commercial applications a push. Fingers crossed. ;)

[JMJones0424]

Seems we are one step closer to realizing computing books like the one imagined in Neal Stephenson's The Diamond Age. I find the potential exhilarating.

[CraigD]

Welcome to hypography, MadIce, and thanks for the link to the story of IBM’s graphene transistors! :)

As a computer hardware nerd I am excited about news like this. In February 2010 IBM created a prototype of transistors with an on and off rate of 100 GHz using graphene. That was already good news, because we are soon reaching the limits of how small conventional silicon chips can go. Graphene would allow a significant performance increase beyond the limits of silicon.

While it seems like a good, tiny conductor like graphene should find its way into some pieces of computer hardware, according to the Techworld story, I don’t think transistors like IBM’s latest won’t be among them, due to their inability to actually be turned on and off. Though the language is a bit over my head, it says:

Lin cautioned against thinking of graphene as a substitute for the silicon-based microprocessors used in today's computers, at least at anytime in the near future. One major roadblock is that graphene does not work easily with discrete electronic signals, he explained. Because graphene is a zero bandgap semiconductor, meaning there is no energy difference between its conductive and nonconductive states, transistors made of the semiconductor cannot be turned on and off. In contrast, silicon has a bandgap of one electron volt, making it good for processing discrete digital signals, Lin said.

I’m pretty sure this means you can’t use them for digital storage or processing, so memories or CPU logics are a no-go for these transistors.

 

Instead, they promise more accurate precision instruments, and even smaller and more power efficient radio and audio gadgets, which I interpret as neat lab gear, and even tinier mobile phone chipsets.

 

Seems we are one step closer to realizing computing books like the one imagined in Neal Stephenson's The Diamond Age. I find the potential exhilarating.

As an equal-opportunity nit-picker geek (I’ll pounce on perceived inaccuracies in non-fiction and fictional references with equal ferocity ;)), I’m compelled to point out that the Young Lady’s Illustrated Primer computer/book in Diamond Age wasn’t primarily an electronic computer at all, but a nanoscopic mechanical computer, what Stephenson called a “rod logic”. This is an old (ca 1990), Drexlarian idea, where all the limitations associated with electronics – their pesky heat issues, volatility, magnetic cross-chatter and quantum headaches, etc – are banished by replacing them with vast numbers of nanoscopic pushrods, gears, and the like, all assembled from carbon, ie diamond. If you’ve any doubt DA is written in a Drexlarian utopia future, recall that the institute where John Hackworth designs, builds, and ultimately steal the YLIP, has a big statue of Drexler-as-Promethius in its lobby. :)

 

Unlike Drexler in his wildest speculative flights ca. 1990, I’d not assume nano-mechanics the successor to present-day electronics. Hard-core Drexlarian nanotech is troubled by none of it every having been built, or even the serious theoretical objections to its possibility answered with more than enthusiastic hand-waving. Modest, soft-core nanotech, on the other hand, makes wonders such as building big structures out of single diamond crystals pretty reasonable sounding – though I can’t help but wonder if the global diamond jewelry biz might have something to say about some of the technology’s spinoffs, such as cheap, flawless diamonds the size of golf balls! :blink:

[Michaelangelica]

The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences has decided to award the Nobel Prize in Physics for 2010 to

 

A

Source: Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences

 

Wendy Barnaby: Carbon has been the big winner in the physics and chemistry Nobel Prizes. The physics prize has gone to two Russians at the University of Manchester, Andre Geim and Konstantin Novoselov. They've isolated and new material called graphene, a layer of carbon only one atom thick or one atomic plane, as Andre Geim expressed it to the BBC.

 

Andre Geim: Six or seven years ago we stumbled on a material which is called graphene which is one atomic plane of graphite. So we managed to isolate one atomic plane and that essentially was the very beginning.

 

Wendy Barnaby: Because it is so thin, it's been very hard to take out of graphite but Geim and Novoselov like to have fun experimenting, especially on Friday evenings. During one of these sessions, they pressed some Sellotape to some graphite to see if they could strip off a thin layer and it worked so well that it set them off on the trail of their new material.

 

Andre Geim: Graphene and similar representatives of this new class of materials, they show amazing unique properties which we do not encounter in standard materials, and this is what the Nobel Prize is for.

 

Wendy Barnaby: Unique it certainly is. Graphene is the world's thinnest material and pretty well transparent, but it is the strongest material ever measured and it's a phenomenal conductor of heat and electricity. It could be used for a new generation of solar cells, LCD displays and pollution sensors. This prize comes as British scientists are fighting to hang on to funds for curiosity-driven research. The president of the Royal Society, Britain's academy of science, is Lord Rees, and he is keen to point out the value of the laureates' basic research.

 

Martin Rees: It's a fine example of academically motivated research. These guys have no idea what they were going to find and they were given the freedom and the space to develop their ideas and they used ingenuity rather than lab equipment, and these two people playing around with their Sellotape and graphite, and no-one could have predicted the outcome. And what they have discovered is going to have immense technical applications, but they never foresaw that and that was not their motive when they did it.

 

 

http://www.abc.net.au/rn/scienceshow/stories/2010/3029969.htm#transcript