Described by Nature because the “gilded cousin of Graphene”, Goldene is a one-atom-thick sheet of gold created by scientists from Linköping College (LiU) in Sweden.
It has distinctive properties that the researchers imagine may pave the way in which for functions resembling carbon dioxide conversion, hydrogen manufacturing, water purification, and communication.
Shun Kashiwaya, a researcher on the Supplies Design Division at LiU, explains, “In the event you make a cloth extraordinarily skinny, one thing extraordinary occurs. As with Graphene, the identical factor occurs with gold. As you recognize, gold is normally a metallic, but when single-atom-layer thick, the gold can turn into a semiconductor as a substitute.”
An unintended discovery
Traditionally, makes an attempt to create single-atom sheets of gold have been hindered as a result of metallic’s propensity to lump collectively. Nevertheless, the profitable creation of Goldene was achieved by way of a century-old Japanese smithing method referred to as Murakami’s reagent, which etches away carbon residue. For this job the group used an oxidizing reagent.
To supply Goldene, the researchers used a 3 dimensional base materials with layers of gold sandwiched between titanium and carbon.
There was a component of serendipity to the creation of Goldene nonetheless, as Lars Hultman, professor of skinny movie physics at LiU admits. “We had created the bottom materials with fully totally different functions in thoughts. We began with an electrically conductive ceramics referred to as titanium silicon carbide, the place silicon is in skinny layers. Then the concept was to coat the fabric with gold to make a contact. However once we uncovered the part to excessive temperature, the silicon layer was changed by gold inside the bottom materials.”
The LiU researchers now plan to show their consideration to exploring whether or not different noble metals may bear the same course of and yield but extra unimaginable functions.
Funding for this analysis was supplied by a spread of establishments, together with the Swedish Analysis Council, the Swedish Authorities’s Strategic Analysis Space in Supplies Science, and Linköping College.