Showing posts with label Conductivity. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Conductivity. Show all posts

December 28, 2012

The Materiality of Super Strength Graphene

Scientific researchers in Britain, Norway and the U.S. are bringing us a major breakthrough in material science—by developing a “super strength” substance called graphene.

According to the Guardian (26 December 2012), graphene has “unmatched electrical and physical properties.” It’s made of an “atom-thick sheet of carbon molecules, arranged in a honeycomb lattice,” and promises to revolutionize telecommunications, electronics, energy industries, not to mention the untold applications for the military.

- Conductivity:  Transmits electricity a million times better than copper
- Strength: The strongest material known to humankind, 200 times that of steel (Sciencebuzz)
- Transparency & Flexibility:  So thin that light comes through it; more stretchable than any known conductor of electricity

Just a few of the amazing uses graphene will make possible (some of these from MarketOracle):

- Home windows that are also solar panels—clear off that roof and yard
- TV in your windows and mirrors—think you have information overload now?
- Thinner, lighter, and wrappable LED touch screens around your wrists—everyone can have Dick Tracy style
- Medical implants and organ replacements that can “last disease-free for a hundred years”—giving you that much more time to be a helicopter parent
- Vastly more powerful voice, video and data and palm-size computers—giving the average person the “power of 10,000 mainframes”
- Both larger and lighter satellites and space vehicles—imagine a skyscraper-size vehicle weighing less than your “patio barbecue grill”!
- Tougher and faster tanks and armored personnel carriers with the plus of an invisibility cloak—even “Harry Potter” would be jealous

The potential is truly amazing, so whomever thinks that the best technology is behind us, better think again. Better yet, soon they’ll be able to get a graphene brain implant to help them realize what they’ve been missing. ;-)

(Source Photo: here with attribution to University of Maryland)

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