Graphene has self-healing property
JUL 12, 2012
DOI: 10.1063/PT.5.026161
BBC : Besides its many mechanical and electronic properties, graphene can repair itself when punctured, reports a group of researchers at the University of Manchester in the UK. They discovered that effect by accident while trying to understand how and why holes were forming when they added metal contacts to strips of the material. To study the problem, the researchers deliberately poked holes in graphene sheets by firing electron beams through them. They noticed that if there were stray carbon atoms in the vicinity, they would snap into place all by themselves and fix the gap. Such self-healing could prove useful because graphene’s thinness makes it extremely fragile to work with. The paper detailing their results was published in Nano Letters.
© 2012 American Institute of Physics
