5 ms·

Graphene seems to be like a hotshot actor who lands a million auditions but somehow never makes it past a walk-on role in a toothpaste commercial.

XorNot 2y ago
It's because it's just about impossible to handle: the number one thing a sheet of graphene wants to do is stick another sheet of graphene on top of it and become...regular graphite.
- dmead 2y ago
  Well someone needs to tell graphene so stop fucking it's coworkers and get back to set
brightball 2y ago
The reason is that it’s very difficult to get a consistent product from mining, from what I have heard.
tliltocatl 2y ago
The kids these days are so spoiled. Silicon doping was discovered like when? And how long did it take to make a practical transistor? Seriously through, it's not every new discovered phenomena owes you something.
- devonsolomon 2y ago
  True. Guess I’m disheartened by years of clickbait.
  - api 2y ago
    It’s okay. Next year we will defeat and reverse aging with one simple trick so you can wait longer, at least according to the latest health science click bait.
    - bryanrasmussen 2y ago
      I will not rest until I have you immortal, flying your fusion powered car, using augmented reality VR controls, to your very own immersive shopping experience with AI assistant android sexbots catering to your every whim and I will not REM enhanced super-sleep until that happens! I'll give you fifteen minutes to call me back. /Jerry Maquire out
- BiteCode_dev 2y ago
  20 years. And we have been able to produce graphene around 2004 I believe, so we are going soon to cross that threshold.
- dtgriscom 2y ago
  I've been watching technology for the last fifty+ years, and I had the same (admittedly unfair) reaction as the OP.
  - tliltocatl 2y ago
    Lol I'm obviously joking, I'm probably younger than both OP and 70% of people out here. But my point that the nature doesn't owe us anything still stands. University press releases are really to blame for building up unrealistic expectations, but then you can't expect them to honestly tell you "we spend millions on things with zero practical applicability just because it's awesome".
api 2y ago
It takes a long time to go from lab bench and physics papers to practical use to mass produced and generally available practical use. Graphene has incredible properties as a structural material too but so far producing it at that scale and making it behave properly in things like composites has been very hard. But the physics says once we get it to work we have composites many times stronger than steel or materials like Kevlar.
gaze 2y ago
There’s a few reasons for this. There’s a few ways to make graphene. You can use CVD or you can use mechanical exfoliation. Mechanical exfoliation requires scotch tape and scales to maybe a flake per hour per grad student. CVD is quite scalable but makes shitty graphene. A lot of graphene breakthroughs (superconductivity for instance) needs mechanically exfoliated graphene. Secondly, process fab is VERY conservative. There’s numerous amazing ferroelectrics that you can grow tons of that would absolutely spank NAND flash. However, they’re not silicon fab, so nobody makes them.
- dehrmann 2y ago
  But scotch tape is nearly as cheap as grad students.
- tbrownaw 2y ago
  > There’s numerous amazing ferroelectrics that you can grow tons of that would absolutely spank NAND flash. However, they’re not silicon fab, so nobody makes them. So why doesn't somebody new start making them and put all the current flash producers out of business?
  - throwaway48476 2y ago
    Silicon technology is already so efficient it would be hugely expensive to compete with it. No one has the money or risk appetite to try.
  - jiggawatts 2y ago
    I’d love a reference or two to read on ferroelectric memory tech…
    - gaze 2y ago
      You might just look for work on HfO2
- Uehreka 2y ago
  > scotch tape Is there actually a special property of scotch tape that makes it the ideal candidate over some more specialized industrial adhesive? Or are these references to scotch tape generally just references to the fact that you _can_ use scotch tape like the original graphene experiment?

XorNot 2y ago

It's because it's just about impossible to handle: the number one thing a sheet of graphene wants to do is stick another sheet of graphene on top of it and become...regular graphite.

dmead 2y ago
Well someone needs to tell graphene so stop fucking it's coworkers and get back to set

brightball 2y ago

The reason is that it’s very difficult to get a consistent product from mining, from what I have heard.

tliltocatl 2y ago

The kids these days are so spoiled. Silicon doping was discovered like when? And how long did it take to make a practical transistor? Seriously through, it's not every new discovered phenomena owes you something.

devonsolomon 2y ago
True. Guess I’m disheartened by years of clickbait.
- api 2y ago
  It’s okay. Next year we will defeat and reverse aging with one simple trick so you can wait longer, at least according to the latest health science click bait.
  - bryanrasmussen 2y ago
    I will not rest until I have you immortal, flying your fusion powered car, using augmented reality VR controls, to your very own immersive shopping experience with AI assistant android sexbots catering to your every whim and I will not REM enhanced super-sleep until that happens! I'll give you fifteen minutes to call me back. /Jerry Maquire out
BiteCode_dev 2y ago
20 years. And we have been able to produce graphene around 2004 I believe, so we are going soon to cross that threshold.
dtgriscom 2y ago
I've been watching technology for the last fifty+ years, and I had the same (admittedly unfair) reaction as the OP.
- tliltocatl 2y ago
  Lol I'm obviously joking, I'm probably younger than both OP and 70% of people out here. But my point that the nature doesn't owe us anything still stands. University press releases are really to blame for building up unrealistic expectations, but then you can't expect them to honestly tell you "we spend millions on things with zero practical applicability just because it's awesome".

api 2y ago

It takes a long time to go from lab bench and physics papers to practical use to mass produced and generally available practical use. Graphene has incredible properties as a structural material too but so far producing it at that scale and making it behave properly in things like composites has been very hard. But the physics says once we get it to work we have composites many times stronger than steel or materials like Kevlar.

gaze 2y ago

There’s a few reasons for this. There’s a few ways to make graphene. You can use CVD or you can use mechanical exfoliation. Mechanical exfoliation requires scotch tape and scales to maybe a flake per hour per grad student. CVD is quite scalable but makes shitty graphene. A lot of graphene breakthroughs (superconductivity for instance) needs mechanically exfoliated graphene. Secondly, process fab is VERY conservative. There’s numerous amazing ferroelectrics that you can grow tons of that would absolutely spank NAND flash. However, they’re not silicon fab, so nobody makes them.

dehrmann 2y ago
But scotch tape is nearly as cheap as grad students.
tbrownaw 2y ago
> There’s numerous amazing ferroelectrics that you can grow tons of that would absolutely spank NAND flash. However, they’re not silicon fab, so nobody makes them. So why doesn't somebody new start making them and put all the current flash producers out of business?
- throwaway48476 2y ago
  Silicon technology is already so efficient it would be hugely expensive to compete with it. No one has the money or risk appetite to try.
- jiggawatts 2y ago
  I’d love a reference or two to read on ferroelectric memory tech…
  - gaze 2y ago
    You might just look for work on HfO2
Uehreka 2y ago
> scotch tape Is there actually a special property of scotch tape that makes it the ideal candidate over some more specialized industrial adhesive? Or are these references to scotch tape generally just references to the fact that you _can_ use scotch tape like the original graphene experiment?