Researchers at Rice University have discovered a new carbon material that is eight times tougher than graphene. Monolayer amorphous carbon (MAC) boasts an unusual combination of crystalline and disordered regions, which creates a unique composite structure that significantly enhances its toughness.
According to graduate student Bongki Shin, the material’s design prevents cracks from propagating easily, allowing it to absorb more energy before breaking. The researchers used in situ tensile testing inside a scanning electron microscope to directly observe how MAC withstands stress. They found that cracks in the material slowed, branched, and even stopped before breaking.
The internal structure of MAC is made up of crystalline domains that are interspersed with disordered regions. This unique design raises the energy required to fracture the material, making it more durable than other carbon materials like graphene. Graphene is known for its strength but lacks toughness due to its brittleness, causing sudden failure when a crack starts.
MAC’s internal disorder allows it to handle cracks by forcing them to branch or stall, which enhances its toughness without sacrificing stiffness. This makes MAC suitable for use in devices that need to bend or stretch without breaking, such as flexible electronics and wearable tech.
The material is synthesized using laser-assisted chemical vapor deposition, the same method applied to graphene and hexagonal boron nitride (h-BN). The researchers hope that this approach can be scaled up and used to develop a new family of thin, durable materials with customizable fracture resistance. Further studies are needed to understand how MAC behaves under different types of stress, but initial results suggest it could revolutionize the field of flexible electronics and surface coatings.
Source: https://www.earth.com/news/scientists-create-a-two-dimensional-carbon-material-eight-times-stronger-than-graphene