Slashdot: Laser Light Forges Graphene Into the Third Dimension

Laser Light Forges Graphene Into the Third Dimension
Published on October 01, 2017 at 04:34PM
Big Hairy Ian quotes New Atlas: The wonder material graphene gets many of its handy quirks from the fact that it exists in two dimensions, as a sheet of carbon only one atom thick. But to actually make use of it in practical applications, it usually needs to be converted into a 3D form. Now, researchers have developed a new and relatively simple way to do just that, using lasers to ‘forge’ a three-dimensional pyramid out of graphene… By focusing a laser onto a fine point on a 2D graphene lattice, the graphene at that spot is irradiated and bulges outwards. A variety of three-dimensional shapes can be made by writing patterns with the laser spot, with the height of the shape controlled by adjusting the irradiation dose at each particular point. The team illustrated that technique by deforming a sheet of graphene into a 3D pyramid, standing 60 nm high. That sounds pretty tiny, but it’s 200 times taller than the graphene sheet itself.

“The beauty of the technique is that it’s fast and easy to use,” says one of the researchers. “It doesn’t require any additional chemicals or processing.”