Science News

Photo credit: Lewis Smith, Science Reporter

It's lunchtime. I should be blogging, but I keep having to do work instead. So rather than post on something timely but time-consuming, I'm taking advantage of a lull in the demands on my lunch hour to post this really cool story that I've been saving since March 1, 2007.

The Times Online (UK) reported on the first about a new scientific breakthrough.

Scientists have created the thinnest material in the world and predict that it will revolutionise computing and medical research.

A layer of carbon has been manufactured in a film only one atom thick that defies the laws of physics. Placed in layers on top of each other it would take 200,000 membranes to reach high enough to match the thickness of a human hair.

The substance, graphene, was created two years ago but could be made only when stuck to another material. Researchers have now managed to manufacture it as a film suspended between the nanoscale bars of scaffolding made from gold.

Such a feat was held to be impossible by theorists, backed up by experimentation, because it is in effect a two-dimensional crystal that is supposed to be destroyed instantly by heat.

The reporter is obviously engaging in hyperbole by saying this "defies the laws of physics." It merely defies the previously held beliefs about the laws of physics.

The crystalline membrane, comprising carbon atoms formed into hexagonal groups of six to create a honeycomb pattern, is thought to be able to exist because rather than lying flat it undulates slightly. Undulation provides the structure with a third dimension that gives it the strength to hold together, the researchers have reported in the journal Nature.

The graphene membrane has proved to be so stable that it holds together in vacuums and at room temperature. All other known materials oxidise, decompose and become unstable at sizes ten times the thickness.

Kostya Novoselov, of the University of Manchester, said that its main applications were expected to be in vastly increasing the speed at which computers could make calculations and in researching new drugs.

The membrane could also be used as a microscopic sieve to separate gases into their constituent parts.

In medical research the membrane, which at single atom thickness measures 0.35 nanometres, could be used as the support for molecules being analysed by electron microscopes.

As with so many technological advances, once this gets into production, manufacturers and researchers are sure to find even more ways to use the carbon membrane to revolutionize other areas of our lives. And then we'll all wonder how we ever did without it.