'Magical' graphene: Harder than diamond

Andre Konstantin Geim was born in 1958 in Sochi (Russia), studied Moscow's physics and successfully defended his doctoral thesis at the Chernogolovka Institute of Solid Physics in 1987.

Mr. Andre Konstantin Geim.

After a period of research in England and Denmark, in 1994, he became a visiting professor at Nijmegen University (Netherlands) and from 2001, Geim taught at Manchester University (UK).

By finding graphene, he was awarded the Koerber Prize at Hamburg City Hall (Germany). Named after Kurt Adolf Koerber (1909-1992), the German industrial magnate and the "strong sponsor" of the research community, this is one of the most prestigious awards in Europe for scientists who have distributed proving important and extremely creative.

Graphene is derived from graphite (graphite). The graphene film created by Geim is only as thick as the thickness of a carbon atom. This is the thinnest material today. When stacked on top of each other, a material with many unique physical properties is created.

It is not possible to put graphene in existing materials. First, it is a 'non-stereoscopic' material because it is only one millionth of the thickness of conventional newsprint. Second, it is also impossible to classify graphene as metal or semiconductor, although it conducts electricity and heat very well.

Moreover, graphene is harder than diamond and extremely durable. A 28km long steel wire will break itself if it is suspended vertically, while a graphene wire indicates a break in the same condition at a length of over 1,000km. In the scientific world, there are people trying to make an 'elevator' with graphene that connects the earth to satellites.

Model of a graphene membrane.

The first applications of graphene are in the field of microelectronics and nanotechnology. A British scientist in Dr. Geim's working group has now built a transistor made of graphene, 1/10 nanometers thick and only 1/4 of the size of the smallest transistor made of material. silicon. This type of transistor does not need to be cooled and can be activated by a single electron.

Not only that, transistors made of graphene have a rate of opening and closing that is 100 times faster than today's most 'sensitive' transistors. This means that electronic computers using graphene transistors have a faster calculation rate than the 'supercomputers' that use silicon transistors.

Another great feature of graphene is that it does not allow air to pass through (airtight). This material will have many applications in the food packaging industry and some other areas.

Graphene was compiled by Professor Geim's team from graphite in 2004. This is an accidental discovery, since both previous theory and experimentation suggest that there cannot be a single graphite carbon layer. The discovery of how to make graphene is a rare story in the history of science, because it comes from a roll of duct tape.

Dr. Geim put the graphite piece on a special piece of tape, stuck the ends together, then opened the tape . and repeated this 'boring' job. Thereby, the graphite piece is separated one layer at a time, increasingly thin, then people mix them into acetone.

In the mixture, there are also single-layer carbon only 1 atom thick. Because of this great discovery, but so simple and unimaginable, Geim's separation method is called 'scotch tape'.

According to Geim, the human eye could not see the graphene film and only the most advanced electron microscope realized this thickness. Under a microscope, a piece of graphite 100 times thicker than carbon atoms is yellow, 30-40 layers are blue, 10 layers are pink and graphene is very pale pink.

Scientists believe that in the future, graphene is more likely to replace silicon and the country that makes a 'graphene valley' like Silicon Valley in the United States, which can lead the way in its technologies. future. That is why scientists around the world are racing to research graphene applications.

According to scientists, graphene is capable of increasing the processing speed of current computer chips to 500 to 1,000 Ghz./.