Physicists at Linköping University have shown that a dose of hydrogen or helium can render the "super material" graphene even more useful.
Graphene has engendered high expectations whereof its extreme properties depend on the fact that it consists of a single sheet of carbon atoms. However the attraction forces between the atoms cause the sheets to be drawn to each other. One solution is to add atomic hydrogen between the layers.
Presented in the eminent journal Physical Review A, the researchers' calculations show that the hydrogen at a given concentration affects the atomic van der Waals forces and becomes repulsive instead of attractive. The result is that graphene sheets repel each other and float freely just a few nanometres apart (an example of the so-called quantum levitation).
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