Downsizing Technology

Graphene is Graphite on the atomic scale.

Perhaps taking somewhat of a backseat in headline-making technological advancements of our machines, are the materials we use to make them. The world of materials defines our technology from the mass-produced iron of the Industrial Revolution to the complex alloys of the jet age as well as the silica that underpins the information age. Now we may be on the verge of a new age, based on our ability to manipulate matter on the smallest scale.

Nanotechnology

Not all invention results from identifying a need and coming up with a solution. Sometimes scientific discoveries are so radical and unexpected they can take a while to realize their potential for practical applications. For years it has been widely assumed the technology required to advance us into nanotechnology was decades away. However, the biggest step towards nanotechnology has already quietly been developed earning its discovering scientists the Nobel Prize.

Rapidly Advancing Technology

Science and technology are advancing so rapidly that it's quite understandable that even we do not know where we empirically stand in the evolution of our technology. And such innovations often rely on the mavericks of invention who tend to look at the world in a very different way. While we dream of expected new advancements, these mavericks blindside us with the discoveries we could not have imagined in our wildest dreams.

Physicist Andre Geim

Physicist Andre Geim attributes most of his inventions to sheer luck, stating, "The more you try the more you get lucky". Andre is the man who made tomatoes, strawberries and even frogs levitate by focusing and manipulating strong magnetic fields. He also designed a sticky tape based upon the design of the feet of geckos. Andre Geim shared the Nobel Prize for discovering one of the strongest new materials in the world, Graphene.

Graphene

The journey that led Andre to the Nobel Prize began with pure scientific curiosity about the world of the very small. As a scientist he was always interested in what happened to the materials when they became thinner and thinner. Eventually you reach the point where the material is only as wide as its individual atoms and molecules. Graphite is composed of thin sheets of material tightly stacked together. Andre discovered that by simply using adhesive tape, graphite could be separated down to its atomic structure called Graphene. On this level materials behave in a completely different matter than they typically do at larger scales.

The practical applications of atomic materials radically change the game of technology because materials at the atomic level can literally defy the laws of known physics. As of yet, even the scientist who designed this material are hesitant to speculate its potential to alter the face of our technology. Until now, they had not even conceived the possibility of machines this small even in the realm of nanotechnology.