#nanotechnology
New form of carbon discovered. It "is atomically thin like graphene, but is made up of squares, hexagons, and octagons forming an ordered lattice." "Its electronic properties are very different from those of graphene."
"In contrast to graphene and other forms of carbon, the new Biphenylene network -- as the new material is named -- has metallic properties. Narrow stripes of the network, only 21 atoms wide, already behave like a metal, while graphene is a semiconductor at this size."
"The new material is made by assembling carbon-containing molecules on an extremely smooth gold surface. These molecules first form chains, which consist of linked hexagons, and a subsequent reaction connects these chains together to form the squares and octagons. An important feature of the chains is that they are chiral, which means that they exist in two mirroring types, like left and right hands. Only chains of the same type aggregate on the gold surface, forming well-ordered assemblies, before they connect."
