A new study from Queen Mary University of London finds that graphene is in fact a 3D material, as well as a 2D material. This Realization is said to be important for understanding its mechanical properties and for developing novel graphene-based devices.
In this study, the researchers asked two fundamental questions: to what extent is graphene graphite, and what is the true thickness of graphene? To their surprise, they found that 2D graphene, which is a flat single layer of carbon atoms arranged in a honeycomb structure, has many of the same mechanical properties as 3D graphite, which is a naturally occurring form of carbon made up from a very weak stack of many layers of graphene. They show that graphene shares a similar resistance to compression as graphite and that it is significantly thicker than is widely believed.
Dr. Yiwei Sun, lead author of the study from Queen Mary University of London, said: "Graphene owes its thickness to an array of chemical bonds sticking out above and below the 2D plane of carbon atoms. Hence graphene is really a 3D material, albeit with a very small thickness... By applying conventional 3D theory, which has been used for around 400 years, to 2D materials such as graphene, which have been known for 15 years, we show that similar arguments apply to other so-called 2D materials, such as boron nitride and molybdenum disulphide. In that sense, 2D materials are actually all 3D."