Scientists prove graphene dispels fundamental law of physics

By Shawn Knight
May 13, 2014
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  1. It's too early to know if graphene, the one-atom-thick sheet of carbon held together in a honeycomb pattern, will indeed be the successor to modern-day silicon although a recent discovery by researchers from the Max Planck Institute for Polymer Research...

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  2. MilwaukeeMike

    MilwaukeeMike TS Evangelist Posts: 2,729   +1,093

    I think this could be explained a little better... The more water you have, the more heat it can absorb too. But what makes graphene weird is that it's rate of conduction increases as you add more of it. Meaning, X amount of graphene will conduct X amount of heat. But twice that amount of graphene will conduct 4 times as much heat, not twice as much as Fourier's law predicts.

    Cool, but aren't they still working on making a piece of graphene bigger than a micrometer?
    Jad Chaar likes this.
  3. RzmmDX

    RzmmDX TS Addict Posts: 294   +58

    From what I get from this is that more graphene = better absorption of heat = somehow smaller electrical components disregarding how much graphene is needed and how fast it could radiate heat.

    So, what you could get is smaller and efficient carbon heatsinks that makes your Macbooks cooler by 2 degrees at best?
  4. Jad Chaar

    Jad Chaar TS Evangelist Posts: 6,477   +965

    Yeah, in order for graphene to be a notable/worth successor for silicon it has to be produced in bulk cheaply enough. Once they find out how to efficiently get sheets of graphene, the technology is gonna go no where.
  5. VitalyT

    VitalyT Russ-Puss Posts: 3,107   +1,376

    In the meantime, COG (Chip On Glass) is thriving. But there is always room for something better.
  6. Resp1ra

    Resp1ra TS Rookie

    Last I saw some people developed a way to mass produce it in a blender, but I could be mistaken.
  7. Resp1ra

    Resp1ra TS Rookie

    My guess in what he means is they could develop chips that require no heat sink or a very small one compared to todays because they dissipate heat so well, compared to what we use today.
  8. I wonder there is some mistake. Thermal conductivity and heat storage is not same concept, Fourier's law describes the heat conduction ; while "The larger, the more heat it can absorb" is the description of heat storage. Thermal conduction depend on thermal conductivity, and temperature gradients; while the heat storage depend on density, heat capacity and phase transition. there are not the same thing at all.
    spectrenad and RenGood08 like this.
  9. Per Hansson

    Per Hansson TS Server Guru Posts: 1,926   +185

    gamoniac likes this.
  10. gamoniac

    gamoniac TS Addict Posts: 292   +68

    Sweeeeet! Thanks for sharing that link. Nothing like seeing it in action.

    BTW, TS site consistently freezes on IE 11 (on two separate Win 8 machines). After awhile, the browser warns that JavaScript (I assume) has been running and gives me the option to "Stop Script". It looks like the Ads panel caused it. FF and Chrome do not have this issue though.

    PS: This only started happening recently (last week or two, maybe?).
    Last edited: May 14, 2014
  11. OliTheG

    OliTheG TS Member Posts: 61   +27

    Em, can we have the title changed? It's misleading.

    Nothing can be "proven" in a hard science. Not gravity, not thermodynamics; nothing. We can provide evidence for them, but not provide absolute definitive proof. Heck, this article "proves" it. A fundamental law of physics. Hmm. Could one say that has been "proven?" No, because they have seemingly been disproven.

    It should read something like "Scientists find evidence to suggest that graphene dispels major laws of physics"
    wiyosaya likes this.
  12. No, they've made much larger sheets of graphene, they just don't have many methods to mass produce it. The current one, chemical deposition, can create large sheets, but they often have flaws. They are currently looking for better methods, but they've advanced far past micrometers.
  13. wiyosaya

    wiyosaya TS Maniac Posts: 933   +240

    You are not mistaken - See this
    Resp1ra likes this.
  14. RenGood08

    RenGood08 TS Booster Posts: 185   +13

    This intrigues me, but I really have no opinion in this department.
  15. It does however follow the laws of conductivity, and if info is correct the graphene may be converting the heat into electricity, and thus the thicker the material the greater the conductivity by more than the increase in thickness. It makes perfect, predictable sense.

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