A two-dimensional material with similar physical properties to graphene has now turned out to blow graphene out of the water in terms of toughness. Th

This 2D Material Is Way Tougher Than Graphene, And Scientists Are Excited

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2021-06-04 17:30:08

A two-dimensional material with similar physical properties to graphene has now turned out to blow graphene out of the water in terms of toughness.

The material is called hexagonal boron nitride (h-BN), and it's so resistant to cracking that scientists are gobsmacked. The finding flies in the face of the fundamental description of fracture mechanics that scientists have been using to predict and define toughness since the 1920s.

"What we observed in this material is remarkable," said materials scientist Jun Lou of Rice University. "Nobody expected to see this in 2D materials. That's why it's so exciting."

Hexagonal boron nitride is actually extremely similar to graphene. The two materials both consist of hexagonal lattices of atoms. In the case of graphene, all those atoms are carbon; but for h-BN, each hexagon contains three boron atoms and three nitrogen atoms.

Carbon-carbon bonds are among the strongest in nature, so it's expected that graphene would be much stronger than h-BN. In general, that's true: The two materials have similar values for strength and elasticity, but h-BN's are slightly lower. Graphene has a strength of about 130 gigapascals for strength and 1.0 terapascals for elasticity; h-BN's values are 100 gigapascals and 0.8 terapascals respectively.