The scientific community has been praising graphene as some sort of miracle material for years now–even going so far as to say that it could eventually replace silicon. Well, graphene can now add another statistic to its impressive resume now that researchers have confirmed it as the strongest material ever tested.
Two engineering professors at Columbia University tested graphene’s strength at an atomic level by indenting a perfect sample of the material with a sharp probe made of diamond. The results confirm what many had suspected all along–and that will go a long way to bolster the case that graphene would be able to handle the heat produced in future ultrafast processors. [Technology Review]
sfnox
Friday, July 18, 2008 at 4:34 PMThis is excellent. But how expensive is it? Is it going to be another Titanium?
simulacrum
Monday, February 8, 2010 at 10:04 AMTitanium is an element.. so it has to be found and dug up. If there’s not much of it in the earth you can’t make it in a furnace out of something else.
Graphene is a configuration of carbon atoms, much like diamond. It might be rare in nature, but the element of which it is composed is abundant. At the moment they haven’t been able to make very large crystals in the lab, but hopefully they’ll figure it out.
steve
Friday, July 18, 2008 at 6:54 PM> This is excellent. But how expensive is it? Is it going to be another Titanium?
No, it won’t be expensive. The base material is graphite, the same stuff found in pencil ‘lead’