Carbyne: An unusual form of carbon
International team of researchers investigates optical band gap of carbon compound
Which photophysical properties does carbyne have? This was the subject of research carried out by scientists at Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg (FAU), the University of Alberta, Canada, and the Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne in Switzerland, which has led to a greater understanding of the properties of this unusual form of carbon. Their findings have now been published in the latest edition of the journal Nature Communications.
'Carbon has a very special status in the periodic table of the elements and forms the basis for all forms of life due to the extremely large number of chemical compounds it can form,' explains Prof. Dr. Dirk M. Guldi at the Chair of Physical Chemistry I at FAU. 'The most well-known examples are three-dimensional graphite and diamond. However, two-dimensional graphene, one-dimensional nanotubes and zero-dimensional nanodots also open up new opportunities for electronics applications in the future.'
Material with extraordinary properties
Carbyne is a modification of carbon, known as an allotrope. It is manufactured synthetically, comprises one single and very long chain of carbon atoms, and is regarded as a material with extremely interesting electronic and mechanical properties. 'However, carbon has a high level of reactivity in this form,' emphasises Prof. Dr. Clémence Corminboef from EPFL. 'Such long chains are extremely unstable and thus very difficult to characterise.'
