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Science

Laser Light Forges Graphene Into the Third Dimension (newatlas.com) 36

Big Hairy Ian quotes New Atlas: The wonder material graphene gets many of its handy quirks from the fact that it exists in two dimensions, as a sheet of carbon only one atom thick. But to actually make use of it in practical applications, it usually needs to be converted into a 3D form. Now, researchers have developed a new and relatively simple way to do just that, using lasers to 'forge' a three-dimensional pyramid out of graphene...

By focusing a laser onto a fine point on a 2D graphene lattice, the graphene at that spot is irradiated and bulges outwards. A variety of three-dimensional shapes can be made by writing patterns with the laser spot, with the height of the shape controlled by adjusting the irradiation dose at each particular point. The team illustrated that technique by deforming a sheet of graphene into a 3D pyramid, standing 60 nm high. That sounds pretty tiny, but it's 200 times taller than the graphene sheet itself.

"The beauty of the technique is that it's fast and easy to use," says one of the researchers. "It doesn't require any additional chemicals or processing."
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Laser Light Forges Graphene Into the Third Dimension

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  • by ls671 ( 1122017 ) on Sunday October 01, 2017 @05:48PM (#55289309) Homepage

    The wonder material graphene gets many of its handy quirks from the fact that it exists in two dimensions, as a sheet of carbon only one atom thick.

    Atoms are 3 dimensional, so no!

    • The wonder material graphene gets many of its handy quirks from the fact that it exists in two dimensions, as a sheet of carbon only one atom thick.

      Atoms are 3 dimensional, so no!

      Well, it does exist in 2 dimensions, also in 3.

      • by ls671 ( 1122017 )

        They must be really special atoms since protons are 3D with a Charge radius of 0.8751(61) fm

        https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]

        2 dimensional atoms made with 3D protons, this gets interesting!

    • Single layer sheet of atoms is about as close to two dimensional as we can perceive.

      • by ls671 ( 1122017 )

        Yep! and Chuck Norris is about as close to infinite power as we can perceive. Therefore, Chuck Norris is virtually infinite power.

  • I am a graphene researcher. Actually, I'm a commercial scientist working on graphene products. It's been... educational watching certain parts of my field fail to pay attention to the actual commercialization of graphene that's been going on around them for the last several years. If you look around with just a little effort, you can find real graphene enabled products (as in graphene plays an important role more than just marketing) for purchase right now.

    Graphene doesn't "need" a 3D structure. For succ

    • by OneHundredAndTen ( 1523865 ) on Sunday October 01, 2017 @09:42PM (#55290069)
      Can you please provide examples? The truth is, graphene was touted to be the wonder material of the future and, ten years later, it seems to remain the wonder material of the future. Examples that it is the wonder material of today would be most welcome.
      • 30 years ago I acquired a pot of graphene grease.
      • by Whibla ( 210729 )

        This company [nanene.com] makes graphene for use in carbon fibres and plastics, although as far as I can tell it's still fairly early days and hence small scale. The parent company [versarien.com] also makes graphene impregnated inks for printable electronic circuitry amongst other things.

        I think there's still stumbling blocks to making vast amounts of the stuff, and the companies linked above hold patents on some current manufacturing processes, which might be delaying further wide scale development.

        I think it's fair to say that worki

      • It's not a "wonder material." It's a new material, and it's got some interesting properties. The hype is really a problem. As I said, just a little looking finds some products, here's one. [nanomedica...ostics.com]
  • Given: a lump of coal
    Problem: make a sail
    Problem: make a cover
    Turn On Laser...
  • since when the fuck did Atoms become 2D items?
    • It is a shorthand for all of the atoms residing in the same plane. It's a completely reasonable way to phrase it.
  • Wait, isn't this how my DVD-R burner works? Are they REALLY saying that they just re-invented the DVD-R/CD-R technology for Graphene? If so, give those guys a cookie.

Heisengberg might have been here.

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