NERSC Users Find That Nanodroplets of Water Can Manipulate
Graphene Contact: Linda Vu, email@example.com, 510-495-2402
Courtesy of Petr Král, University of Illinois at Chicago
|Molecular dynamics simulations reveal that droplets of water
cause atomically thin layers of graphite (graphene sheets) to
fold up into more compact shapes. Here, a droplet of water
causes the 'petals' of a flower-shaped graphene ribbon about 13
nanometres across to fold up around it.| April 30, 2010 Chemists
from the University of Illinois at Chicago using the National
Energy Research Scientific Computing Center's (NERSC) Cray XT4
supercomputer, called Franklin have found that nanodroplets of
water can be used to shape graphene into complex capsules,
sandwiches, knots, and rings to serve as the building blocks of
nanodevices with unique mechanical, electrical, and optical
properties. Graphene, the two-dimensional crystalline form of
carbon, is one of the strongest materials ever tested, with a
breaking strength 200 times greater than