It might not look like much, but that’s because it isn’t much! Like many of science’s greatest finds, this three-atom thick sheet of glass (well, a view of it from an electron microscope) was discovered by accident when an air leak caused carbon, copper and quartz to react, producing this marvel.
It’s composed entirely of silicon and oxygen and the only reason it’s not a single atom is because the minimum thickness of silica glass is — you guessed it — three atoms. According to Science Mag, this means the glass is technically two-dimensional, a fact which will boggle my mind for years to come. If you’re not feeling it with me, consider that the little dots in the image above are individual atoms. Yeah, they look almost exactly like they do in the inset diagram.
The discovery was made by a group of researchers from Cornell University in New York, Germany’s University of Ulm, the University of Vienna in Austria and Germany’s Helsinki and Aalto universities.
What can we do with this glass? I’m not quite sure yet, but it’s unlikely to be iPhones for ants.
Image: Pinshane Huang, David Muller, Cornell University.
The Joker
Saturday, February 4, 2012 at 12:36 PMFinally, a discovery about a new material that’s not made from carbon nanotubes.
LyndonL
Saturday, February 4, 2012 at 2:03 PMLol yeah. Can’t deny the usibility of Carbon Nanotubes though.
A pretty amazing feat. Looking at th at picture takes me back 12 years to my HS Chemist classes. Van der Waal forces and what not…… Ah thank God that’s over lol.
Titsnass
Saturday, February 4, 2012 at 1:25 PMIf it’s hard enough, they could use it as a protective coating for,… well,… something!
nica
Saturday, February 4, 2012 at 5:09 PMIphone cover?
joe
Saturday, February 4, 2012 at 11:04 PMcondoms?
bob
Sunday, February 5, 2012 at 5:49 PMhumans?
Nicholas
Saturday, February 4, 2012 at 9:02 PMWondering how strong a whole lot of layers of this could be. Might make a good screen if it became super strong or something.
Kuan
Sunday, February 5, 2012 at 9:14 AMErm.. Aalto Uni and Helsinki are both in Finland.
jay
Sunday, February 5, 2012 at 5:49 PMwindows?
Graeme
Monday, February 6, 2012 at 12:46 AM“technically two-dimensional”
Nope, well and truly three dimensional. Just because one of the dimensions is really small it does not mean it ceases to exist.
jeremy
Monday, February 6, 2012 at 11:33 AMhmmm, I think you are thinking classically there, from the wave equation persepctive this may well behave as “less than 3d” :-) (as in not a “bulk material” in one dimension)
Osiris Fox
Monday, February 6, 2012 at 3:34 PMI agree with you to some extent. Is a single atom considered 3 dimensional? If so, then that is still just extremely thin three dimensional glass. However, the molecular bonds appear to be two dimensional.only as they are only Up down left right but no forward and back (operate on X and Y but not Z.)
olearymo
Tuesday, February 7, 2012 at 12:00 PMI don’t see why they classify 3 or less atoms as ’2 dimensional’. it’s 3 atoms thick. therefore 3 dimensional. if it was 0 atoms thick (or perhaps, by definition, 1?) then it’d be 2D.