Graphene stands unrivaled in terms of strength among all known materials. In addition to its unparalleled robustness, its superior conductivity of heat and electricity makes it an incredibly versatile and unique material. The unprecedented properties of graphene were so remarkable that its discovery was honored with the Nobel Prize in Physics in 2010. However, our comprehension of this material and its related substances remains largely incomplete, primarily due to the immense challenge in observing the atoms that constitute them. To overcome this obstacle, a collaborative research effort from the University of Amsterdam and New York University has discovered an unexpected solution.
Materials that exist in two dimensions, composed of an ultra-thin, singular layer of atomic crystals, have been receiving considerable interest in recent times. This heightened interest is largely attributed to their atypical attributes, which significantly differ from their three-dimensional ‘bulk’ counterparts.
Graphene, the most famous representative, and many other two-dimensional materials, are nowadays researched intensely in the laboratory. Perhaps surprisingly, crucial to the special properties of these materials are defects, locations where the crystal structure is not perfect. There, the ordered arrangement of the layer of atoms is disturbed and the coordination of atoms changes locally.
Despite the fact that defects have been shown to be crucial for a material’s properties, and they are almost always either present or added on purpose, not much is known about how they form and how they evolve in time. The reason for this is simple: atoms are just too small and move too fast to directly follow them.
In an effort to make the defects in graphene-like materials observable, the team of researchers, from the UvA-Institute of Physics and New York University, found a way to build micrometer-size models of atomic graphene. To achieve this, they used so-called ‘patchy particles’.
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