Graphene
Although graphene was only isolated in 2004, it has already stirred up enough fervor in the physics world to win the 2010 Nobel Prize for Physics. So why is this carbon molecule so interesting? Not only does graphene have a unique structure – a one-atom-thick sheet of carbon atoms bonded together in a hexagonal lattice – but it also possesses superlative transparency, flexibility, strength, and electrical and thermal conductivity. These traits give graphene the potential for a multitude of applications, but they are only the tip of the iceberg. Graphene is truly unique because of the unusual behavior of its electrons: first of all, they behave like massless fermions, and secondly, they show an abnormal quantum Hall effect. In my talk, I will discuss graphene’s structure and characteristics, the reason that its electrons have zero effective mass, and its peculiar manifestation of the quantum Hall effect.