Graphene is the “wonder material” of our age, and it has been extensively discussed on the science pages of Digital Journal. Graphene is a carbon based material, just one atom thick. The super-strong material is flexible, transparent, impermeable to moisture and more conductive than gold.
Less has been written about so-called “white graphene.” The term refers to boron nitride. Boron nitride is sometimes dubbed “white graphene” because it shares similar properties, although it is not carbon-based. Instead, the material is made up of equal numbers of boron and nitrogen atoms. The compound has excellent thermal and chemical stability. There was one key difference with graphene, material is a very good insulator of heat, and has the potential to “cool down” electronic devices.
Taking the two contrasting factors of graphene as a conductor and boron nitride as an insulator scientists, from the U.S. Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory, have developed a method whereby a monolayer of white graphene is used to pair up with graphene to form a very thin, transparent substrate.
The future application of the substrate could be very powerful, according to Gizmag, and used to fashion batteries, capacitors, solar cells, video screens and fuel cells as thin as a piece of paper. Initial trials with the substrate have led to promising new types of tiny, powerful lights. These are not just for effect for they could hold the basis for even faster data transfer.
The white graphene — graphene substrate — is described in the journal Chemistry of Materials. The research paper is titled “Synthesis of Hexagonal Boron Nitride Monolayer: Control of Nucleation and Crystal Morphology.”
