Relativistic physics in the lab

Science : Graphene holds enormous promise for transistors and other electronic devices. But it is already making an impact in the arcane world of high-energy physics.

That’s because electrons in graphene don’t behave like electrons in a standard metal. In the lattice of a typical metal, electrons feel the push and pull of surrounding charges as they move. As a result, moving electrons behave as if they have a different mass from their less mobile partners. When electrons move through graphene, however, they act as if their mass is zero--behavior that makes them look more like neutrinos streaking through space near the speed of light.

At such “relativistic” speeds, particles don’t follow the usual rules of quantum mechanics. Instead, physicists must invoke the mathematical language of quantum electrodynamics, which combines quantum mechanics with Albert Einstein’s relativity theory. Even though electrons course through graphene at only 1/300 the speed of neutrinos, physicists realized several years ago that the novel material might provide a test bed for studying relativistic physics in the lab.