Thursday, January 26, 2012

Laser Scoring in Nano Manufacturing of Graphene Coated Products

The other day, I was reading in one of the science journals and it turns out that some researchers have discovered that the one-dimensional carbon sheets known as graphene have self-healing properties. In other words, when you put a hole in one of the sheets, the atoms reattach themselves wherever they can almost immediately, to remake that one-dimensional, one atom thick molecular structure. Hey, that's a pretty nice trick isn't it? And since the graphene can do that, it automatically makes a great deal of sense for various coating applications. Okay so let's talk about this for second shall we?

Just because the atoms work to repair themselves and maintain that molecular structure, doesn't mean that it will always be good for us unless we can control this process in the nano manufacturing of the material. It seems to me that we could use a laser scoring strategy to cut the grafting very slowly, and allow it to reattach, shaving off precision amounts as we move across the sheet. In doing this it would tighten down like a zipper each time, holding in whatever was behind the sheet in a tighter and tighter sequence, therefore giving it structural strength, kind of like shrink-wrapping, but on a nano scale.

Do we have to use a laser to do this? No actually we can also use the same enzymes found in human blood, which will help dissolve the carbon and perhaps we could put these enzymes through a tube kind of like a carbon nanotube injector or cutting tool, only it wouldn't be made of carbon nanotubes, some other element that forms into a similar to structure in a stable molecular form. This would also suffice. Of course, it depends on what you're working with. If the material behind the graphene coating could be damaged by the laser, then you couldn't use the laser, you'd have to use something else.

Whatever you use would have to be something of intense precision, working under some sort of an electron microscope using an artificial intelligent algorithm to ensure that the laser stayed on the same line as it cut across to the carbon bonds between the atoms, therefore it could cut the exact dimensions necessary and tighten the graphene sheet one molecule spacing at a time. Do you see my point? If we can do this, providing we can create graphing sheets, which I believe we will be able to do in the future, then such a strategy could work.

This would mean we could use this material for just about anything, and it would be in outer shell of superior strength, and a coating which would always be self-healing both before, after, and even during the manufacturing process. Wow. Indeed, I hope you will please consider all this and think on.

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