Something I ran across recently in Scientific American - the discovery is not all that new.

Graphene is related to carbon nanotubes and buckminsterfullerene, but is a form of carbon as a single atom thick planar sheet. It's worth a bit of Googling to read about. Many articles simply repeat others, of course.

Electronically, the stuff is very strange. Carbon isn't known for its excellent conductive properties (I know it does, but hardly on a par with, say copper or gold). The graphene form is a much better conductor than any metal. Electron velocity is very fast, something like .5% of C (!). Their observed nature changes to something like Dirac fermions.

To get you started, here is a link to the Wikipedia article - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graphene.

 

Something I ran across recently in Scientific American - the discovery is not all that new.

Graphene is related to carbon nanotubes and buckminsterfullerene, but is a form of carbon as a single atom thick planar sheet. It's worth a bit of Googling to read about. Many articles simply repeat others, of course.

Electronically, the stuff is very strange. Carbon isn't known for its excellent conductive properties (I know it does, but hardly on a par with, say copper or gold). The graphene form is a much better conductor than any metal. Electron velocity is very fast, something like .5% of C (!). Their observed nature changes to something like Dirac fermions.

To get you started, here is a link to the Wikipedia article - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graphene.

Guys, nature is amazing!!!

 

Guys, nature is amazing!!!

As is carbon by itself. You can spend your whole life with it and still learn. I can remember when adamantane was still something of interest. John