Superconductivity switches on and off in 'magic-angle' graphene(phys.org)
phys.org
Superconductivity switches on and off in 'magic-angle' graphene
https://phys.org/news/2023-01-superconductivity-magic-angle-graphene.html
42 comments
There is alot people don't know about solid state physics in general. Part of why people love to work with graphene is because it makes it possible to begin investigating edge cases in the current understanding of the quantum mechanics of bulk materials. There is a great deal being learned about physics in general through graphene systems.
I would not be surprised if some of this knowledge has already found applications in use now like designing better photodetectors, or applying a better understanding of cooper pairs to improve commercial superconductors. A product does not necessarily have to contain graphene or have graphene in its name to have benefited from this line of research.
I would not be surprised if some of this knowledge has already found applications in use now like designing better photodetectors, or applying a better understanding of cooper pairs to improve commercial superconductors. A product does not necessarily have to contain graphene or have graphene in its name to have benefited from this line of research.
I think what is very poorly communicated by the scientists writing these papers, is often that it is about investigating a “model” system, generally because its is easy to work with such system(i.e) shows interesting properties above 4k. Its less about producing stuff with graphene, and more about understanding the physics behind it. What eventually actually gets produced may actually use materials that are similar to the model system but not actually it.
So far. Eventually a manufacturing process will be worked out. In the mean time there's a lot of theoretical stuff we gain, and that theory gets used by other things. Remember that for most of human history, scientific and technological progress was extremely slow, taking centuries for a minor improvement. We've been absolutely spoiled rotten by the past century.
It is widely believed by aerospace nerds that the new models of F-35 use carbon nanutubes to absorb radar. (Lockheed has a patent and the timing works out)
I thought they could be manufactured at scale but producing long unbroken strands at scale is the issue. Nanotubes are already in a bunch of things that don't require long strands.
Are you living under a rock? There must be hundreds of products already using graphene. It's in batteries, sports equipment, building materials, electronics. E.g. https://hobbyking.com/en_us/graphene-5000mah-6s-75c.html
https://www.runningxpert.com/en/inspiration/best-inov8-runni...
https://shop.suninhouse.eu/gb/graphene-ir-heating-films/22-g...
https://elecjet.com/products/apollo-traveller-graphene-usb-c...
https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/ultron-most-powerful-wire...
https://www.runningxpert.com/en/inspiration/best-inov8-runni...
https://shop.suninhouse.eu/gb/graphene-ir-heating-films/22-g...
Concretene is 30-50% stronger than standard RC30 concrete and does not require steel reinforcement, meaning significantly less material is needed to achieve the equivalent structural performance. Although the material is more expensive to produce (approximately 5% additional cost), the reduced amount of Concretene results in 10-20% overall cost saving for the end customer.https://elecjet.com/products/apollo-traveller-graphene-usb-c...
https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/ultron-most-powerful-wire...
Hey, can you please edit out swipes like "Are you living under a rock"? This is in the site guidelines: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html.
Your comment would be just fine without that bit.
Your comment would be just fine without that bit.
I thought the gentle scolding was appropriate to the scale of misinformation shared in this thread.
It is a disservice to the community to downplay the relevance of graphene.
It is a disservice to the community to downplay the relevance of graphene.
Modern building and urban infrastructure construction are among the largest consumers of raw materials globally, with cement and concrete manufacturing alone responsible for approximately 8% of the anthropogenic CO2 emissions globally. https://www.azonano.com/article.aspx?ArticleID=6360
I think this is a case of the "objects in the mirror are closer than they appear" phenomenon (https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...). We all underestimate (by 10x or more) the impact that these swipes have when they're in our own comments. You know what your intent was and you know that it wasn't malicious; but the rest of us don't have access to that state (https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...).
Also, there is one of you but thousands of rest-of-us (i.e. readers), so your comment will have a statistical distribution of responses. Most people won't have any problem but inevitably, some tail of the bell curve gets activated, and this segment is by far the most likely to reply. This is how we end up with seriously degraded threads under relatively mild provocation.
It's true that HN's rules come (sadly) at the cost of making things more bland (https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu...). But it's a mistake to think there's a viable alternative to that cost, because you can't allow for the creative/interesting/lively kind of swipe without opening the gates of flamewar hell. If you have a small, cohesive group, that kind of thing can work*, but not on a large open internet forum. So we're all stuck with having to err on the neutral side.
* I like the analogy of rugby: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...
Also, there is one of you but thousands of rest-of-us (i.e. readers), so your comment will have a statistical distribution of responses. Most people won't have any problem but inevitably, some tail of the bell curve gets activated, and this segment is by far the most likely to reply. This is how we end up with seriously degraded threads under relatively mild provocation.
It's true that HN's rules come (sadly) at the cost of making things more bland (https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu...). But it's a mistake to think there's a viable alternative to that cost, because you can't allow for the creative/interesting/lively kind of swipe without opening the gates of flamewar hell. If you have a small, cohesive group, that kind of thing can work*, but not on a large open internet forum. So we're all stuck with having to err on the neutral side.
* I like the analogy of rugby: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...
Whether or not you think the tone is justified, that type of thing is just against the rules. User dang is the moderator of this site. He will rarely intervene and if he does please follow his requests.
I know who dang is, I just don't see how the phrase living under a rock is offensive? It is a very trivial thing in my culture. Perhaps it is different in America, and I should be more sensitive, but the same goes both ways. To me, that phrase is only lightly ribbing someone who is out of touch with tech...on a tech forum. As I said, in my culture this is not meant as anything offensive and you could be more generous in your interpretation of my meaning. Particularly as I went out of my way to share so many useful links on the subject.
deeviant(1)
I get the feeling that these "hundreds" of uses aren't really leveraging the materials' most effective properties. It would not surprise me, if the graphene does little more, than add expensive chrome to the brand.
Sort of like using a UPS unit as a doorstop. Looks fancy, but maybe not its most effective implementation.
Maybe like the "Truffle Oil" industry: https://www.tasteatlas.com/truffle-industry-is-a-big-scam
And, as far as I know, I am not living under a rock. Thanks for the suggestion, though.
Sort of like using a UPS unit as a doorstop. Looks fancy, but maybe not its most effective implementation.
Maybe like the "Truffle Oil" industry: https://www.tasteatlas.com/truffle-industry-is-a-big-scam
And, as far as I know, I am not living under a rock. Thanks for the suggestion, though.
I gave a concrete example. Something that is in use today.
Concretene is 30-50% stronger than standard RC30 concrete and does not require steel reinforcement, meaning significantly less material is needed to achieve the equivalent structural performance. Although the material is more expensive to produce (approximately 5% additional cost), the reduced amount of Concretene results in 10-20% overall cost saving for the end customer.All I've been able to find is some test slabs they poured in 2021 and a bunch of news/pr articles. It doesn't appear to be widely available or used despite the ease of doing so (it's just an additive added at the plant).
I'm not surprised that there is a lot of inertia. No one wants to be the first to recommend changing a 40 year old recipe for pouring concrete damns. But "just an additive" is really underselling it.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-61913871
The concrete slab was setting so fast, and so strong, that the builders had begun gliding polishing machines over the driest part of the floor while their colleagues were still pouring the other end of the rink.
"Normally, you'd have to wait a week before you could do that," he says. The installation, in October last year, took less than a day.
"By adding as little as 0.1% graphene into cement and aggregate, you can potentially use less material to get the same performance," explains Mr Baker. Reducing the amount of concrete used in construction for instance by 30%, could lower global CO2 emissions by 2-3%, he estimates
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-61913871
Concrete innovation doesn't have a great track record
"Concrete example" I see what you did, there...
Like I said, it looks like the only thing that is being done, is that they are using graphene to add a bit more tensile strength. I suspect that there are other materials that would work just as well (or maybe better). It's probably not the "killer feature" for graphene.
Reminds me of this old The Onion story: https://www.theonion.com/bantu-tribesman-uses-ibm-global-upl...
Like I said, it looks like the only thing that is being done, is that they are using graphene to add a bit more tensile strength. I suspect that there are other materials that would work just as well (or maybe better). It's probably not the "killer feature" for graphene.
Reminds me of this old The Onion story: https://www.theonion.com/bantu-tribesman-uses-ibm-global-upl...
The battery you linked is just a lipo battery that says 'graphene' on it, it doesn't have anything to do with graphene other than using the word for marketing.
I have a friend who works in nanotube manufacturing and they can do it at scale. My impression is that the industrial application of this stuff is just a lot of hard work and has progressed slowly.
I wonder if the delay for these sorts of things is just this way?
I mean, the theory of relativity came out in 1905, and applications might have taken 70 or 80 years and only in small ways.
I mean, the theory of relativity came out in 1905, and applications might have taken 70 or 80 years and only in small ways.
At CES this year, I saw some capacitive sensors (with astonishing sensitivity) made from fractal carbon nanotubes on paper.
Agreed.
I worked on Graphene back in 2006 and it has been the 18m away from revolutionising everything ever since. The lack of a reliable, precise, bulk, manufacturing process means so much of these results are basically just theoretical.
:(
I worked on Graphene back in 2006 and it has been the 18m away from revolutionising everything ever since. The lack of a reliable, precise, bulk, manufacturing process means so much of these results are basically just theoretical.
:(
I remember reading a decade ago how they figured out how to create it by using sticky tape to pull up a single layer… what happened to that?
Unfortunately, that is stochastic and will not be reproducible or result in yields anywhere close to acceptable to industry. There are methods to grow materials of the same class(TMDC) with CVD and the like, but apparently they don’t reach the quality of flakes that the tape method results in.
This is a poor understanding of the scientific method.
My comment is not about the scientific method.
You claim many of the results remain theoretical. Are you familiar with the experimental validation of many of these results? That is certainly part of the scientific method.
You replied to a comment saying they had worked with the stuff with a ridiculous assertion that they misunderstood the scientific method. Learn social skills if you want to actually discuss something
We should also figure out what do do with the stuff before it ends up in the ocean and landfills. Or at least what will happen when it’s there.
Pretty sure graphene is equivalent to asbestos on the cancer scale. Not sure why there is such a pressure to put more more more out there before we can assess the impacts.
Until they start stuffing it raw into house insulation, making clothing and baby powddr from it and blowing it around freely as fake snow, I think it'll be fine for the foreseeable future. Even asbestos is generally fine as long as it's fixed into a solid form and not disturbed (like roofing panels).
And there's definitely awareness about nanoparticles, as well as benzene and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons that there was not when asbestos was in full swing.
And there's definitely awareness about nanoparticles, as well as benzene and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons that there was not when asbestos was in full swing.
A good one I heard: graphene can do everything/anything except get out of a lab.
They should make memristors out of it.
Maybe I missed it, but the article does not say what temperature/pressure this material is superconducting at. Also is this superconductivity the same as the typical definition of superconductivity (e.g. YBCO)?
It's supercooled to well below 1K, but I don't see anyone doing research with magic angle graphene at high pressures.
Matt Yankowitz' "Tuning superconductivity in magic-angle graphene" shows how hydrostatic pressure affects TBG magic.
Ah, no wonder there's no common daily uses of it yet.
It makes me sad to keep reading all these stories about what an awesome thing Graphene and Carbon Nanotubes are, then never seeing anything actually happen, in real life.
I have to assume that is because it is impossible to manufacture these materials at any reasonable scale.