Graphene is graphite sloughed off in layers just atoms thick (Image: De Agostini/Getty Images)
Graphene started it all, but even as we try to exploit its distinctive properties, a host of new materials just atoms thick are already in the works
GRUBBY, grey graphite and searing, scintillating diamond – both forms of the same thing, elemental carbon. It's a fact that probably bamboozled us at school. But for materials scientists, the lessons didn't stop there. If they thought they knew everything there was to know about the basic element of all life we have seen so far, recent years have taught them to think again.
Carbon, it turns out, can shape-shift in all sorts of ways, developing intriguing and unexpected personas as it does so. Football-shaped buckyballs come from outer space, but can be made with a whack of electricity in the lab. Tightly rolled nanotubes can ...
To continue reading this article, subscribe to receive access to all of newscientist.com, including 20 years of archive content.
Graphene is graphite sloughed off in layers just atoms thick (Image: De Agostini/Getty Images)
Graphene started it all, but even as we try to exploit its distinctive properties, a host of new materials just atoms thick are already in the works
GRUBBY, grey graphite and searing, scintillating diamond – both forms of the same thing, elemental carbon. It's a fact that probably bamboozled us at school. But for materials scientists, the lessons didn't stop there. If they thought they knew everything there was to know about the basic element of all life we have seen so far, recent years have taught them to think again.
Carbon, it turns out, can shape-shift in all sorts of ways, developing intriguing and unexpected personas as it does so. Football-shaped buckyballs come from outer space, but can be made with a whack of electricity in the lab. Tightly rolled nanotubes can ...
To continue reading this article, subscribe to receive access to all of newscientist.com, including 20 years of archive content.
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