Graphene 'Crazier' Than Scientists Thought: Ultrafast Handling 1,000x More Electric Current
Did you already think graphene was awesome? Well 2016 goes out with another bang for graphene, as it looks to become the perfect building block for next-generation ultra-fast electronics.
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A new study published Dec. 21st in Nature Communications shows that the electrical current density of graphene is about 1000 times higher than what normal material is able to withstand before destruction of that material from too much electrical current.
"Graphene can withstand such extreme currents without suffering any damage."
This isn't about being an efficient conductor. Earlier this year scientists turned graphene into a superconductor moving electrons with zero resistance. This discovery already ranked graphene at the top of the list for the "Wonder Material of the Year". This new study shows, not the efficiency of the electron flow, but how many electrons can graphene handle charging through it within a short period of time.
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Graphene is a one-atom thick honeycomb-structured sheet of carbon. It's stronger than steel, harder than diamond, incredibly flexible, and can now withstand the high charge density of electricity.
The experiment to uncover these secrets of high charge density required the researchers to blast positively-charged xenon ions at a sheet of graphene.
Sketch of the experimental set-up with the target holder and electrostatic analyser
This causes large numbers of electrons from the graphene atoms to be ripped away as the xenon passes through the graphene sheet.
Ion energy loss results and a detailed view of the neutralization dynamics
When a single xenon ion hits and passes through the graphene sheet, it can steal more than 20 electrons from the surrounding atoms of graphene. Each carbon atom only has six electrons. Losing 20 electrons is a big deal in terms of stability of the atomic structure.
Having this many negatively charged electrons removed from the atom, left an overall positive charge in the surrounding carbon atoms. A xenon ion can also punch out a carbon atom, but this has a smaller effect than the loss of electrons from many surrounding atoms.
Transmission electron microscopy results
Since magnetic poles of the same charge repel each other, we would expect the same to happen here:
"What you would expect to happen now is for these positively charged carbon ions to repel one another, flying off in what is called a Coulomb explosion and leaving a large gap in the material, but astoundingly, that is not the case. The positive charge in the graphene is neutralised almost instantaneously."
said team member Richard Wilhelm from the Helmholtz-Centre Dresden-Rossendorf in Germany.
What does this mean?
Apart from graphene kicking ass, this means graphene is somehow capable of filling in the electron gap with brand-new electrons instantaneously. This means it's able to transport high density current in a short period of time.
As the electron current moves electrons to transmit electricity from one location to another, the speed to move new electrons into the place where old ones were enables the structure of the atom to stay in place. The new electrons rushed to save the day in mere quadrillionths of a second.
TEM image of a freestanding monolayer of graphene after irradiation
Graphene is extremely rapid at responding to electrical disruption. The electrical current density required to make this happen, means that graphene has 1000 times higher electrical current density than any normal material can handle before it is atomically destroyed from structural disintegrity.
Scientists still need to do further research to determine exactly how this is able to happen. But for engineers, this is great news for the future of building ultrafast electronics. Graphene appears to be a material that can handle intense electron flows for advanced technology like (opto)electronics, photodetection and spintronics.
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Thank you for your time and attention! I appreciate the knowledge reaching more people. Take care. Peace.
References:
- Graphene's crazier than we thought, can handle 1,000 times more current than regular material
- Ultrafast electronic response of graphene to a strong and localized electric field
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@krnel
2016-12-24, 11:33am
Have you seen the study of graphene and silly putty?
Can't say that I have. About flexibility?
http://www.wsj.com/articles/mix-of-graphene-with-silly-putty-yields-extremely-sensitive-sensor-1481225043
[edit]First legit use of silly putty outside of a toy :-)
That's awesome! :)
What was that material used to sense? I don't subscribe to WSJ so I was unable to read the whole article.
Oh I didn't know that. They actually used it to sense a spider walking, which is very hard to do but the sensor was sensitive enough to detect it. I actually heard this story on the radio a couple of weeks ago. I just linked the first article on the search engine.
A little trick on how to read the full WSJ article... google "Mix of Graphene With ‘Silly Putty’ Yields Extremely Sensitive Sensor" then click on the google link and viola... you've got the whole thing!
Good to know, thanks for the tip @alexp
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This is quite exciting!
Graphene has me fascinated already, simply in the realm of its promise for making higher density batteries possible.
Thanks for another great post! 😄😇😄
Yeah, 10-20 years... wow :D
Just plain cool... well as a silver owner, maybe! They are now feeding it to silkworms for electrically conductive silk: https://steemit.com/til/@kyusho/silkworms-fed-graphene
I think you meant to say "harder than diamond," not "hotter than diamond." You might want to fix that. But I don't know, maybe you meant to say "absorbs more heat than diamonds" (I don't know how much heat diamonds absorb). ...It's up near the top, under the hand graphic.
Yeah, no, I meant hotter, diamonds are so hot :P hehe. Thank you very much for the correction. Appreciated lol, what an error.
awesome post
graphene is amazing!