Unaltered Carbon - nano thin

As well as this week's Altered Carbon discussion, I suddenly found myself at a physicist meeting about Unaltered Carbon.

It was a briefing about graphene actually. I could recollect that graphene was created by scraping graphite down to one molecule of thickness. I seemed to remember that it could be made into a matrix and that whilst alone it was transparent, it could be rolled into something black. I remember sculptor Anish Kapoor got into a scuffle over an ultra-black graphene derived paint vs a pinkiest pink paint.

Anyway, it turns out that there's a whole lot more to graphene.

Like commonly available silica sand is used to make the chips in everything, graphene is derived from the fourth most common element - carbon. Graphene is a single layer of carbon atoms, tightly bound in a hexagonal honeycomb lattice via an atomic bond. My artist's impression makes it look quite neat, but when I checked out an electron microscope view, it's actually messier than this.

Carbon is an interesting substance. Being allotropic means it can take different forms as a solid, like diamonds, graphite and coal.

In carbon's graphene form it is the thinnest compound known to man at one atom thick. But that's not all: It's also the lightest material known (with 1 square meter weighing around 0.77 milligrams), the strongest compound discovered (between 100-300 times stronger than steel), the best conductor of heat at room temperature and also the best conductor of electricity.

What have we been doing all this time?

Nowadays people are looking at applications of graphene in high-frequency electronics, bio, chemical and magnetic sensors, ultra-wide bandwidth photodetectors and energy storage and generation.

Unfortunately, we can't just take a pencil lead and shave it to get graphene. We need a chemical vapour deposition rig using ethylene or benzene onto various metals, such as Platinum, Nickel or Titanium Carbide to make the layers of graphene.

With the right high temperatures a graphene layer forms on the underlying substrate. It can be one molecule thick (G-2D) or sometimes multiple graphene layers on top of one another (G-3D).

There's also a 'showered' manufacturing method which can create nanotubes of graphene, like the ones used in the Vantablack paint that Anish Kapoor craves.

More significantly, these nanotubes can be used to fabricate screen displays that flex or have a very large size. We've all heard of OLED, wait for OLET - organic light-emitting transistors. Wafer thin flexible screens both portable and for the wall. Coming soon to a phone near you.

Graphene in batteries creates another jump. High density lightweight storage with very rapid charging. Automobile manufacture maybe? solve the battery range problem now with graphene anodes.

Or something to improve flex and weight in tyres? Vittoria's latest bike tyres are already on to Graphene V2.

The implications of this last example show that prices are dropping as the scale of production finally ramps up.

I took a quick look around and noticed that Tesla is talking about graphene for car batteries, Samsung for their next generation of phones. Apollo already make a graphene charger for iPhones, with a 0 to full charge in 20 minutes. Apple and others are hesitant in case there's any teething problems in their actual devices - causing a massive recall.

Although Apple, as always, have a few patents lying around. The one I notice first from Apple is to use graphene in headphones and speakers.

I have to say that a 15 minute empty to full recharge sounds a lot more interesting. Maybe a 10 minute induction battery recharge on the motorway wouldn't be so bad either.