Wonder Materials: Fabrication or Fact

Aravind introduces graphene, the world’s first 2-d material and the subject of Nobel Prize winning research at the University of Manchester. First isolated in 2004 using the ‘Sellotape technique’, graphene has long been studied as a theoretical material and as the building block of graphite. Now considered among the most exciting areas in science, possessing a number of superlative properties; the race is on to find new methods of mass production and to develop new and exciting applications. Aravind will discuss the future of graphene and the growing family of 2-d materials.

Let’s say you have an awesome idea, like a way of building an invisibility cloak or scaling a whole diagnostics lab down to a single chip. But then let’s say your idea, although awesome, requires materials with optical properties that don’t occur in natural materials. What do you do? Crawl into a small hole, give up and cry yourself to sleep? Or totally boss nature and create materials with these optical properties yourself? Nano-optics researchers have (mostly) chosen the latter route, revolutionising optics by designing a new class of materials. This talk will introduce these META-MATERIALS.