A glass of soda-and-lime is the straight dope for graphene Researchers from the Brookhaven National Laboratory (BNL) in the United States have turned up an unexpected property of common glass: it makes a good substrate for graphene-based electronics in applications like solar cells and touch-screens. While graphene has had “wonder-material” status for a few years now, it's difficult …
"What you're looking for is always in the last place you look."
Of course it is! If you have found what you are looking for, why would you carry on looking*?
*unless what you are looking for is the bottom of your beer glass of course. In that scenario there is plenty of cause to repeat the experiment as many times as required.
While graphene has had “wonder-material” status for a few years now, it's difficult to fabricate, because you have to deposit layers of carbon one or two atoms thick.
Um, no, if it's got more than one layer of atoms, then what you've got there is graphite.
It's only graphene if it is a single layer of atoms bonded in one dimension, as I understand it.
Erm, I think you mean a single layer of atoms bonded in two dimensions but other than that yes, if it's more than one layer it's not graphene. I suspect that properly doped n-layer graphite (where n is small) might have some interesting properties but considering how hard it is to dope a single layer moving to multiple layers is a job for tomorrow.
What makes it graphene is the 2 dimensional nature of the bonding. You can have multiple layers of graphene so long as the carbon in each layer only bonds to other carbon atoms in the same layer. Once formed I assume graphene is stable at room temperature so you should be able to lay it down in layers without it turning into graphite.
"Holes". Gotta love electical engineers. They invent anon-existant charge carrier to explain stuff instead of just using perfectly good electrons to do the job.
They use imaginary numbers to explain stuff like alternators too. How can you trust people like that?
Square root of minus one indeed.
"electical" engineers. "Anon" charge carriers. That's what you get for typing with the iPad soft keyboard while riding the Long Island Rail Road (used by Quinn-Martin to film the action sequences for Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea).
Rockin' rollin' riding.
Sorry lads and lassies.
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