'Magic' Angle Graphene Is BACK...with an Even Bigger Twist

Scientists have unveiled a whole new world of physics that could lead to the superconductors we've been waiting for.

In 2018, the discovery of something called a “magic angle” in graphene rocked the physics community.

Graphene is a single-atom thick layer of carbon that forms a hexagonal lattice pattern, and its atomic arrangement gives graphene certain exciting properties, like being more than 200 times stronger than steel, flexible, transparent, and highly conductive.

And that last property, the highly conductive one, was highlighted in 2018 when researchers put two layers of graphene on top of each other and twisted them at exactly 1.1 degrees. They cooled the graphene structure to just above absolute zero, applied a strong electric field, and found that not only are these graphene bilayers highly conductive...but that they exhibit alternating areas of conductivity and insulation.

This means that scientists saw graphene bilayers (with a twist) behaving like a superconductor. And the thing is, we don’t really know why.

And now this year, while exploring the capabilities of this seemingly ‘magical’ twist further, scientists uncovered something that is arguably an even bigger deal.

An international team at the Institute of Photonic Science in Barcelona made what they call ‘magic-angle twisted bilayer graphene devices,’ by taking two stacks of graphene rotated at the magic angle, and using a mechanical squeezing process to eliminate impurities. This version of the experiment allowed researchers to see details they hadn’t before, like the device’s incredible versatility.

Find out more about how this magic angle graphene can act as an insulator, superconductor, or magnet on this Elements.

#Graphene #Superconductors #Physics #Science #Seeker #Elements

Read More:

A Physics Magic Trick: Take 2 Sheets of Carbon and Twist
"'He’s the guy who’s done this the best,' Andrea Young, a physics professor at the University of California, Santa Barbara who was not involved in the research, said of Dr. Efetov and his collaborators. 'Somehow they have the magic touch.'"

Superconductivity: What Is It and Why It Matters to Our Future
"To get material into a superconductive state, the material has to be frozen to an extremely low temperature, sometimes to only a few degrees above absolute zero (-459.67 degrees Fahrenheit, -273.15 degrees Celsius). Then, for reasons that we still cannot explain, electrical resistance abruptly stops, and an electrical current can continue around a circuit seemingly forever."

Physicists Have Officially Smashed The Record For High-Temperature Superconductivity
"So-called room-temperature superconductivity, above 0 degrees Celsius, is something of a white whale for scientists. If it could be achieved, it would revolutionise electrical efficiency, vastly improving power grids, high-speed data transfer, and electrical motors, to name a few potential applications."
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[dissturbbed]

Rock, Copper, Bronze, Iron, Graphene

[novelnouvel]

Graphene can do many amazing things... except leaving the Lab

[GiRR]

so weird how many things that can be created by just chaning the shape and state of atoms

[tejanb.s]

Graphene sounds like real life vibranium....so cool.

[PrabhuKaranSelvamani]

Waiting for graphene batteries on smartphones

[maximosh]

Based on just two layers, molecules could be arranged to form an entire circuit board having all the properties of many electronic components. Moving atoms individually to make each component would be the hard part ;-)

[lasarith]

Graphene, C, mon everybody, ... let do the twist again like we did last summer, yeah let’s twist again like we did last year...

[ocelot]

Humans : * use graphene to draw useless things on paper *
Alien :

[babu_moshai]

Graphene can have many applications in future and it's very interesting to see it works on low temperature.

[crappymeal]

What else could you "twist"? This is crazy shit, never cease to amaze me what these guys find

[tomtheflutist]

“Two of our favorite words...” I was low key expecting black holes to come up haha

[gabor]

These kind of videos make me want to be an experimental physicist even more! And the narrator is beautiful.

[sebastianelytron]

I swear, graphene can do EVERYTHING



Except leave the lab.

[myfavoritemartian]

SO: Spray graphite dry lube on a cardboard square and place it under a light bulb for an hour. Then stick packing tape over it and pull apart and Instant Graphene! Fold it over twice and run over it with your car. Magic angle Graphene....Got it!

[Bigfoot_With_Internet_Access]

It protecc
It attacc
But most importantly...

Magic angle graphene is bacc

[slayer]

Is it just me, or would funding more research be easier if production was a primary focus? If you can put it into the hands of builders, metallurgists, textile manufacturers, etc. enlightening them on how their industries can benefit from it, they'd be more receptive towards funding research or would fund it through their purchases of the graphene itself.

[elliottmiller]

This is cool. When I was in grad school, graphene was big. I knew they had high electron transport, and suspected they could be used for superconducting. Glad to see that this panned out!

[neoxenoz]

I thought I saw a quantum cpu in the thumbnail

[tocsi]

Looks like we are gonna get our wakandas element...

[jezzkhd]

Details are in the temperature. Properties change with all material near absolute.