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Author here. Three PhDs (Mathematics, Pisa; Quantum Chemistry, UCF; Materials Science, UTD — in progress), plus MS degrees from SJSU and CSU. The gmail is becau

Author here. Three PhDs (Mathematics, Pisa; Quantum Chemistry, UCF; Materials Science, UTD — in progress), plus MS degrees from SJSU and CSU. The gmail is because this is independent work, not affiliated with any institution. v53 reflects thirteen years of development since the original 2013 publication (Graphene 1, 107–109). The barrier is verified at two independent levels of theory with a confirmed transition state. Happy to discuss the physics.

_alternator_ 5mo ago
Have you considered subjecting this to expert scrutiny by submitting to a journal? That's probably better than getting hot takes on HN by random technology enthusiasts, skeptics, anon experts, and trolls.
- iliatoli 5mo ago
  It's under peer review at Physica Scripta (IOP) since March 25. HN is for visibility, not validation.
  - GTP 5mo ago
    It would be interesting to hear back after this passes peer review.
- tux3 5mo ago
  Realistically I don't see how this could be submitted to a journal as-is. I'm sure you could take this material and write a couple papers out of it, but right now this is a 60 page word document with commentary on a variety of topics from memory market economics to quantum computing. It's full of self-congratulatory language like "The transition is not an incremental improvement within the existing paradigm; it obsoletes the paradigm and the infrastructure built around it". Alright, I'm happy to believe that this work is important. But this is not the neutral tone of a scientific article, it reads like ad copy for a new technology. I'm sure there's interesting physics in there, but it needs a serious editing effort before it could be taken seriously by a journal.
  - iliatoli 5mo ago
    The paper has been under peer review at Physica Scripta (IOP) since March 25. The reviewers will decide what stays and what's trimmed. You're reading a preprint, not the final version. The tone in the architecture sections reflects the scope of the claim — reviewers may ask me to moderate it, and I will. The core physics (Sections 2–3) is standard computational chemistry: DFT, transition state optimization, CCSD(T) validation. Those sections read like any other ab initio paper.
    - _alternator_ 5mo ago
      Just remember Watson and Crick's famously humble line in their 1953 Nature paper: "It has not escaped our notice that the specific pairing we have postulated immediately suggests a possible copying mechanism for the genetic material." Big discoveries will speak for themselves.
ricardobeat 5mo ago
That’s amazing. Do you have a home lab with an atomic microscope where you do your research? And what’s the reason for going solo vs a research university, where I assume this type of research could be significantly sped up?
- iliatoli 5mo ago
  No lab — the work is computational. All calculations run on a Dell Precision workstation with ORCA (quantum chemistry) software. An experimental collaborator is now preparing the C-AFM validation. The solo approach is a consequence of the work spanning multiple fields that don't share a single department.
  - deleted 5mo ago
    [deleted]
  - mastermage 5mo ago
    Couldn't you potentially get some smaller grants from each of the fields? Or is that too much paperwork. It always seems so much work to get those grants.
    - Filligree 5mo ago
      Getting a grant from a single field is already a full-time job; the research typically gets done as overtime.
    - rcxdude 5mo ago
      It's a near full-time job in and of itself, and the nature of them means that you really want to get a grant for something you've already done and use the scraps from it to fund the new stuff.
      - mastermage 5mo ago
        I knew it was a pain getting grants but not that its well that much of a pain.
hgoel 5mo ago
Is there a reason you went for 3 PhDs? Especially since they're all in STEM? To me it's a red flag because the point of a PhD is to learn to do research, you don't need to get another one to move between fields (especially within STEM), just need to do research with people in those fields and gain experience.
- iliatoli 5mo ago
  Each PhD was in a different country and decade. Mathematics (Pisa, 2000s), Quantum Chemistry (UCF, 2010s), Materials Science (UTD, now). The fluorographane work exists because all three converge — the barrier calculation is quantum chemistry, the proof structure is mathematics, and the material is materials science. I didn't plan it this way.
  - hgoel 5mo ago
    Ah, that's interesting. Different countries can be a fair reason I suppose.
    - iliatoli 5mo ago
      Fair question. In my case, each PhD opened a door that didn't exist from the previous position. The mathematics PhD in Italy didn't give me access to computational chemistry labs in the US. The quantum chemistry PhD didn't give me access to materials science groups. Immigration, funding structures, and departmental boundaries created the path — not a desire for credentials. The fluorographane paper is the proof that the path was worth it.
- juleiie 5mo ago
  Some people actually enjoy studying and learning in these spaces. Does everything have to be optimized for?
  - nine_k 5mo ago
    3 PhDs is quite some dedication to science, given that a PhD student life is neither that of plenty nor leisure.
foota 5mo ago
Hey -- I have 0 PHDs so take this with a grain of salt :) I had thought for a while about a way to store data that makes use of an idea that I had for sub-diffraction limited imaging inspired by STED microscopy. First an overview of STED. You have a "donut" shaped laser (or toroidal laser) that is fired on a sample. This laser has an inner hole that is below the diffraction limit. This laser is used to deplete the ability of the sample to fluoresce, and then immediately after a second laser is shone on the same spot. The parts of the sample depleted by the donut laser don't fluoresce and so you only see the donut hole fluoresce. This allows you to image below the diffraction limit. My idea was to apply this along with a layer in the material that exhibits sum frequency generation (SFG). The idea is that you can shine the donut laser with frequency A and a gaussian laser with frequency B at the same spot. When they interact in the SFG material you get some third frequency C as a result of SFG. Then, below that material would be a material that doesn't transmit frequencies C and A. Then what you'd be left with after the light shines through those two layers is some amount of light at frequency B. The brightness inside the hole and outside of the hole would depend on how much of the light from frequency B converts into frequency C. Sum frequency generation is a very inefficient process, with only some tiny portion of the light participating, but my thinking is that if laser B is significantly less bright than laser A, then what will happen is that most of the light from laser B will participate in sum frequency generation where it mixes with laser A, and that you'll be left with only a tiny bit of laser A outside of the hole, so that you get a nice contrast ratio for the light at frequency A between the hole and the surroundings that then allow you to image whatever is below these layers below the diffraction limit. In my idea the final layer is some kind of optical storage medium that can be be read/written by the laser below the diffraction limit. Obviously aiming this would be hard :) My idea was that it would be some kind of spinning disk, but I never really got to that point.
YZF 5mo ago
Curious if you've patented this? Very cool. The physics is way beyond me but I understand that each atom in the crystal can be in two states? And those are stable? There is no cross talk or decay at all? You're comparing to current memory technologies but there are also some optical technologies like AIE-DDPR which presumably is (a lot?) less dense but has layers (I noticed you're also discussing a volumetric implementation), would devices based on your technology be simpler/faster? (I guess optical disks don't intend to replace high speed memory). What about access times?
- iliatoli 5mo ago
  Patent strategy is under consideration. Happy to discuss offline — ilia.toli@gmail.com.
gus_massa 5mo ago
What were the topics and titles of your dissertation in the first two PhD? Were they related to this topic or totally different? Edit: https://www.mathgenealogy.org/id.php?id=61429 https://www.mathgenealogy.org/id.php?id=61429 It looks quite unrelated
- iliatoli 5mo ago
  First PhD: algebraic cryptanalysis (Pisa). Second PhD: exact solutions to the Schrödinger equation for few-body systems (UCF). Both unrelated to fluorographane — the connection emerged later.
- edfletcher_t137 5mo ago
  This is their referenced 2013 paper on the subject: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/258423577_Data_Storage_on_Single-Layer_Fluorographene_Sheets https://www.researchgate.net/publication/258423577_Data_Stor... Clearly they have been working on this for over a decade.
  - gus_massa 5mo ago
    I wanted to check the journal where it was published, there are good journals and bad journals.It's very strange that the doi is dead. I found this http://www.aspbs.com/graphene/contents_graphene2013.htm http://www.aspbs.com/graphene/contents_graphene2013.htm but it's also full of dead links.
  - iliatoli 5mo ago
    The journal (Graphene, ASP) ceased operations and the DOI infrastructure went dark. The paper itself is archived at ResearchGate: researchgate.net/publication/258423577. The content is independently verifiable.

_alternator_ 5mo ago

Have you considered subjecting this to expert scrutiny by submitting to a journal? That's probably better than getting hot takes on HN by random technology enthusiasts, skeptics, anon experts, and trolls.

iliatoli 5mo ago
It's under peer review at Physica Scripta (IOP) since March 25. HN is for visibility, not validation.
- GTP 5mo ago
  It would be interesting to hear back after this passes peer review.
tux3 5mo ago
Realistically I don't see how this could be submitted to a journal as-is. I'm sure you could take this material and write a couple papers out of it, but right now this is a 60 page word document with commentary on a variety of topics from memory market economics to quantum computing. It's full of self-congratulatory language like "The transition is not an incremental improvement within the existing paradigm; it obsoletes the paradigm and the infrastructure built around it". Alright, I'm happy to believe that this work is important. But this is not the neutral tone of a scientific article, it reads like ad copy for a new technology. I'm sure there's interesting physics in there, but it needs a serious editing effort before it could be taken seriously by a journal.
- iliatoli 5mo ago
  The paper has been under peer review at Physica Scripta (IOP) since March 25. The reviewers will decide what stays and what's trimmed. You're reading a preprint, not the final version. The tone in the architecture sections reflects the scope of the claim — reviewers may ask me to moderate it, and I will. The core physics (Sections 2–3) is standard computational chemistry: DFT, transition state optimization, CCSD(T) validation. Those sections read like any other ab initio paper.
  - _alternator_ 5mo ago
    Just remember Watson and Crick's famously humble line in their 1953 Nature paper: "It has not escaped our notice that the specific pairing we have postulated immediately suggests a possible copying mechanism for the genetic material." Big discoveries will speak for themselves.

ricardobeat 5mo ago

That’s amazing. Do you have a home lab with an atomic microscope where you do your research? And what’s the reason for going solo vs a research university, where I assume this type of research could be significantly sped up?

iliatoli 5mo ago
No lab — the work is computational. All calculations run on a Dell Precision workstation with ORCA (quantum chemistry) software. An experimental collaborator is now preparing the C-AFM validation. The solo approach is a consequence of the work spanning multiple fields that don't share a single department.
- deleted 5mo ago
  [deleted]
- mastermage 5mo ago
  Couldn't you potentially get some smaller grants from each of the fields? Or is that too much paperwork. It always seems so much work to get those grants.
  - Filligree 5mo ago
    Getting a grant from a single field is already a full-time job; the research typically gets done as overtime.
  - rcxdude 5mo ago
    It's a near full-time job in and of itself, and the nature of them means that you really want to get a grant for something you've already done and use the scraps from it to fund the new stuff.
    - mastermage 5mo ago
      I knew it was a pain getting grants but not that its well that much of a pain.

hgoel 5mo ago

Is there a reason you went for 3 PhDs? Especially since they're all in STEM? To me it's a red flag because the point of a PhD is to learn to do research, you don't need to get another one to move between fields (especially within STEM), just need to do research with people in those fields and gain experience.

iliatoli 5mo ago
Each PhD was in a different country and decade. Mathematics (Pisa, 2000s), Quantum Chemistry (UCF, 2010s), Materials Science (UTD, now). The fluorographane work exists because all three converge — the barrier calculation is quantum chemistry, the proof structure is mathematics, and the material is materials science. I didn't plan it this way.
- hgoel 5mo ago
  Ah, that's interesting. Different countries can be a fair reason I suppose.
  - iliatoli 5mo ago
    Fair question. In my case, each PhD opened a door that didn't exist from the previous position. The mathematics PhD in Italy didn't give me access to computational chemistry labs in the US. The quantum chemistry PhD didn't give me access to materials science groups. Immigration, funding structures, and departmental boundaries created the path — not a desire for credentials. The fluorographane paper is the proof that the path was worth it.
juleiie 5mo ago
Some people actually enjoy studying and learning in these spaces. Does everything have to be optimized for?
- nine_k 5mo ago
  3 PhDs is quite some dedication to science, given that a PhD student life is neither that of plenty nor leisure.

foota 5mo ago

Hey -- I have 0 PHDs so take this with a grain of salt :) I had thought for a while about a way to store data that makes use of an idea that I had for sub-diffraction limited imaging inspired by STED microscopy. First an overview of STED. You have a "donut" shaped laser (or toroidal laser) that is fired on a sample. This laser has an inner hole that is below the diffraction limit. This laser is used to deplete the ability of the sample to fluoresce, and then immediately after a second laser is shone on the same spot. The parts of the sample depleted by the donut laser don't fluoresce and so you only see the donut hole fluoresce. This allows you to image below the diffraction limit. My idea was to apply this along with a layer in the material that exhibits sum frequency generation (SFG). The idea is that you can shine the donut laser with frequency A and a gaussian laser with frequency B at the same spot. When they interact in the SFG material you get some third frequency C as a result of SFG. Then, below that material would be a material that doesn't transmit frequencies C and A. Then what you'd be left with after the light shines through those two layers is some amount of light at frequency B. The brightness inside the hole and outside of the hole would depend on how much of the light from frequency B converts into frequency C. Sum frequency generation is a very inefficient process, with only some tiny portion of the light participating, but my thinking is that if laser B is significantly less bright than laser A, then what will happen is that most of the light from laser B will participate in sum frequency generation where it mixes with laser A, and that you'll be left with only a tiny bit of laser A outside of the hole, so that you get a nice contrast ratio for the light at frequency A between the hole and the surroundings that then allow you to image whatever is below these layers below the diffraction limit. In my idea the final layer is some kind of optical storage medium that can be be read/written by the laser below the diffraction limit. Obviously aiming this would be hard :) My idea was that it would be some kind of spinning disk, but I never really got to that point.

YZF 5mo ago

Curious if you've patented this? Very cool. The physics is way beyond me but I understand that each atom in the crystal can be in two states? And those are stable? There is no cross talk or decay at all? You're comparing to current memory technologies but there are also some optical technologies like AIE-DDPR which presumably is (a lot?) less dense but has layers (I noticed you're also discussing a volumetric implementation), would devices based on your technology be simpler/faster? (I guess optical disks don't intend to replace high speed memory). What about access times?

iliatoli 5mo ago
Patent strategy is under consideration. Happy to discuss offline — ilia.toli@gmail.com.

gus_massa 5mo ago

What were the topics and titles of your dissertation in the first two PhD? Were they related to this topic or totally different? Edit: https://www.mathgenealogy.org/id.php?id=61429 https://www.mathgenealogy.org/id.php?id=61429 It looks quite unrelated

iliatoli 5mo ago
First PhD: algebraic cryptanalysis (Pisa). Second PhD: exact solutions to the Schrödinger equation for few-body systems (UCF). Both unrelated to fluorographane — the connection emerged later.
edfletcher_t137 5mo ago
This is their referenced 2013 paper on the subject: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/258423577_Data_Storage_on_Single-Layer_Fluorographene_Sheets https://www.researchgate.net/publication/258423577_Data_Stor... Clearly they have been working on this for over a decade.
- gus_massa 5mo ago
  I wanted to check the journal where it was published, there are good journals and bad journals.It's very strange that the doi is dead. I found this http://www.aspbs.com/graphene/contents_graphene2013.htm http://www.aspbs.com/graphene/contents_graphene2013.htm but it's also full of dead links.
- iliatoli 5mo ago
  The journal (Graphene, ASP) ceased operations and the DOI infrastructure went dark. The paper itself is archived at ResearchGate: researchgate.net/publication/258423577. The content is independently verifiable.