Next Gen News

to study the miracle material graphene said the government's investment will receive £ 50 for dividends in the UK

last year, a team from the University of Manchester won the Nobel Prize in Physics to isolate and measure the properties of graphene.

A year later, the government realized the potential of a substance - a sheet of carbon atoms one atom thick -. Scientists and engineers say it could do everything from touch screens plastic cheaper and more efficient

George Osborne this week announced an investment of 50 million pounds to create a research center to support the marketing of consumer equipment, to manufacture products in the UK.

"is the strongest, lightest, most efficient materials science, for use in all kinds of chips aircraft wings," said Osborne in his speech to the Conservative party conference Monday . 'We will fund a national research agenda that will take the Nobel Prize for discovering the British laboratory to the production plant in Britain. "

Konstantin Novoselov, who won the Nobel Prize with his colleague Andre Geim of Manchester, said the £ 50 million investment was a "wise decision" which, if well spent, and turn to get economic returns in the UK an attractive place for the best researchers in the world of graphene.

Graphene is a sheet of carbon atoms arranged in a honeycomb lattice. Billions of layers of graphene stacked on each other are more familiar crystals of graphite used in pencils.

Simple structure

But graphene belies its electronic and physical properties. It conducts electricity to a million times better than copper and is more transparent to visible light than any other driver known. It is also stronger than all the other drivers, and more elastic.

should draw the attention of the largest manufacturers in the world. Samsung has produced graphene sheets of the size of a large television set, while a flexible touch screen, was developed by researchers at Rice University in Texas. Airbus said panting in the Paris Air Show with its plans for the future, which was wall of the transparent membrane of the passenger cabin providing a panoramic view that can be useful graphene.

What really boosted the enthusiasm level of graphene is its combination of conductivity, strength and transparency in a single material. Novoselov and Geim experiences deceptively simple to isolate the equipment began in 2004 after seeing their colleagues who studied the crystals of graphite. These scientists use tape to peel a layer above the graphite and the use of powerful microscopes to study the surface of the glass below. Instead of looking glass, Novoselov picked up one of the parts used on the tape that would otherwise be discarded.

then began his own experiments with graphite and tape.

graphene was long list in the Technology Strategy Board of the new technologies, and Bott said he has become a priority in the next year, anyway, but the attention of the Treasury that the process of faster progress. "The idea of ??this center is to try to find a way to connect the science that goes across the UK and electronics companies increasingly small and experimental material that are around, so we can go forward as quickly as possible, "said Bott.