Despite the welfare state, ongoing wars and back-breaking budget problems, your life is about to get a whole lot better. . .
And it's all thanks to a dusty substance that's currently going for four times the price of gold.
Welcome, Sleuthers, to the promising world of "grapheme."
Most of our readers have already heard how the material graphene could change everything from smartphones and ultra-fast broadband to drug delivery and computer chips. . .
Many of these possibilities were inferred. But just in the month of October, three breakthroughs have proved how graphene isn't just opening new possibilities. . .it's closing in on tangible results.
It's only a matter of time now before the market realizes what is happening and you close in fat gains.
Today, I want to show you those three major breakthroughs that will allow graphene to disrupt multiple industries.
But I must add that on Sunday at midnight, your opportunity to experience our best researched graphene play will no longer be available. We're pulling the deal offline because Agora Financial is hosting a conference call with the major players in this "tech boom." And they'll be going over time-sensitive material. So for the sake of your wallets, don't miss this special report after you've read today's Sleuth.
But I'm getting ahead of myself. Let me back up and show you three of the newest tech breakthroughs that are about to change the world and your way of life.
***
Breakthrough #1: Shrinking Size Allows Rapid DNA Sequencing
As you may know, graphene is a nanoparticle. It's very small—about the size of an atom.
It's also one of the thinnest and strongest materials ever, and that's not an exaggeration.
It's been a constant effort to find new ways to control its pore size for the sake of rapid DNA sequencing.
Researchers hadn't had much success doing it, until earlier this month.
Engineers at the University of Texas at Dallas figured out how to shrink down graphene's nanopore size. The effort was funded by the SouthWest Academy of Nanoelectronics, the Air Force Office of Scientific Research and the World Class University Program.
In this study, the team fired up an electron beam from an advanced electron microscope to 1,200 degrees Celsius.
"This is the first time that the size of the graphene nanopore has been controlled, especially shrinking it," said Dr. Moon Kim, professor of materials science and engineering.
"We used high temperature heating and electron beam simultaneously; one technique without the other doesn't work."
Now researchers are further along in making prototypes.
Consider how radical this is. . .
The Human Genome Project cost about $2.7 billion.
That was the first sequencing of human DNA by an international scientific research group.
These engineers today are discovering alternative nanomaterials that could thread DNA strands at the cost of less than $1,000 per person.
According to Kim, "If we could sequence DNA cheaply, the possibilities for disease prevention, diagnosis and treatment would be limitless. Controlling graphene puts us one step closer to making this happen."
Breakthrough #2: Stacking "Electricity Cakes" To Feed Your Grid
Not only can graphene be shrunken down for rapid DNA sequencing, it can also be—very carefully—stacked on top of itself. . .compounding its electronic capabilities.
The University of Manchester showed that by stacking atomic layers of graphene on top of each other in a special sequence—making it look like a multilayered cake—it creates a very efficient electrical transformer.
Electrons moving in one metallic layer pull electrons in the second metallic layer by using their local electric fields.
This principle works only when metallic layers are insulated electrically from each other but separated by no more than a few interatomic distances.
In other words, graphene's exhibits the "Goldilocks Effect". . . it's "just right" for this new architecture.
This is a giant leap from existing nanotechnologies.
According to the press release:
"The researchers started with extracting individual atomic planes from bulk graphite and boron nitride by using the same technique that led to the Nobel Prize for graphene, a single atomic layer of carbon. Then, they used advanced nanotechnology to mechanically assemble the crystallites one by one, in a Lego style, into a crystal with the desired sequence of planes."
Nobel Prize-winning professor Andre Geim said:
"The work proves that complex devices with various functionalities can be constructed plane by plane with atomic precision. There is a whole library of atomically thin materials. By combining them, it is possible to create principally new materials that don't exist in nature. This avenue promises to become even more exciting than graphene itself."
As far as anyone knows, no other material can make these new structures in the same way. Graphene, therefore, makes the method more relevant. . .it translates theory into practice. And it's paving the way for a new range of complex and detailed electronic and photonic devices. . .including various novel architectures for transistors and detectors.
"Our atomic-scale Lego perhaps is the next step of craftsmanship," said Dr. Roman Gorbachev, who assembled the nanotransformer.
Breakthrough #3: A New Generation of Security and Cryptology Devices
So far, you've seen how graphene can be shrunken for applications in personalized medicine, or stacked on top of itself for better electronics. The third breakthrough, however, involves "doping."
Most people don't know that manufacturers chemically dope silicon to adjust its semiconducting properties. The American Chemical Society journal ACS Nano details a novel concept: plasmon-induced doping for graphene. Rice University researchers proved it can be done.
Peter Nordlander, Rice professor of physics and astronomy and of electrical and computer engineering, said, "One of the major justifications for graphene research has always been about the electronics." Silicon-based electronics are "only possible because it can be positively and negatively doped, and we're learning how this can be done on grapheme."
"The doping of graphene is a key parameter in the development of graphene electronics," Nordlander said. "You can't buy graphene-based electronic devices now, but there's no question that manufacturers are putting a lot of effort into it because of its potential high speed."
Arrays of antennas can allow what are called "phantom circuits" to materialize under the influence of light. Meaning graphene can facilitate instant circuitry, or optically induced electronics.
This will allow for a more efficient design and manufacture of electronics, as well as novel security and cryptography devices.
"Quantum dot and plasmonic nanoparticle antennas can be tuned to respond to pretty much any color in the visible spectrum," Nordlander said.
"We can even tune them to different polarization states, or the shape of a wave front."
"That's the magic of plasmonics," he said. "We can tune the plasmon resonance any way we want."
It's like turning graphene into a blackboard where circuitry can be written and erased at will, depending on the colors, angles or polarization of the light hitting it.
Nordlander said he foresees a day when, instead of using a key, people might wave a flashlight in a particular pattern to open a door by inducing the circuitry of a lock on demand. "Opening a lock becomes a direct event because we are sending the right lights toward the substrate and creating the integrated circuits. It will only answer to my call," he said.
So there you have it: breakthroughs that are propelling demand for this new "miracle metal".
As they say, three is a charm.
But isn't four even better?
Tomorrow, I'm going to send you an email detailing a fourth breakthrough that I believe is the most exciting application yet. . .and the public learned about it only this week.
So don't forget to check tomorrow's email from me. It could end up being the best decision you've ever made.
Josh Grasmick
The Penny Sleuth
