VOA标准英语2014--Graphene Called Amazing, Versatile Material of the Future 前景光明的多功能材料石墨烯

 

Graphene Called Amazing, Versatile¹ Material of the Future 前景光明的多功能材料石墨烯

In 2004, two scientists at the University of Manchester in England isolated² a carbon-based material called graphene, with some unusual properties. Andre Geim and Konstantin Novoselov hailed it as 'the wonder material of the 21st century,' and they were awarded the 2010 Nobel Prize in physics. Scientists now say that someday, graphene may change the way we live. 

Graphene is the first man-made two-dimensional material. It is actually only a one-atom-thick layer of pure carbon. It is closely related to nanotubes, and microscopic³ graphite balls called fullerenes.

Graphene is basically graphite, like the core of pencils, but its neatly-arranged and tightly-woven atoms make it 200 times stronger than a steel sheet of the same thickness.

Myriad⁴ positive qualities

The leader of the graphene research team at Manchester University, Aravind Vijayaraghavan, said incredible strength is not its only quality.

"It's bendable, stretchable, transparent⁵, super light. The best conductor of heat, the best conductor of electricity. It's not just one thing that makes it amazing, it's in fact all these things rolled into one," said Vijayaraghavan.

The potential of graphene is practically unlimited⁶. It can be used in cancer therapy, in flexible touchscreens, or for batteries that will charge in seconds. Top tennis players Novak Djokovic and Andy Murray use graphene-based racquets.

Development challenges

But being so thin, graphene also is extremely hard to handle, like the transparent cellulose used for wrapping food.

"It gets everywhere, it crinkles up, it sticks to everything," said Vijayaraghavan.

Because of that, large-scale production is still decades away, said George Mason University Engineering professor Dimitris Ioannou, speaking via Skype. “The real bottleneck⁷ is to find out the technique to make large area graphene layers and that’s not yet possible, I don’t think, but there is a lot of research going on,” he said.

Ioannou said someday, graphene may be very useful for smartphone displays, supercapacitors and nanoantennas for nanomachines that could talk to each other.

 

Britain and the European Union are building a $140-million National Graphene Institute in Manchester, while there are already close to 10,000 patents worldwide related to the new material.

1 versatile   

adj.通用的，万用的；多才多艺的，多方面的

参考例句：

• A versatile person is often good at a number of different things.多才多艺的人通常擅长许多种不同的事情。
• He had been one of the game's most versatile athletes.他是这项运动中技术最全面的运动员之一。

2 isolated   

adj.与世隔绝的

参考例句：

• His bad behaviour was just an isolated incident. 他的不良行为只是个别事件。
• Patients with the disease should be isolated. 这种病的患者应予以隔离。

3 microscopic   

adj.微小的，细微的，极小的，显微的

参考例句：

• It's impossible to read his microscopic handwriting.不可能看清他那极小的书写字迹。
• A plant's lungs are the microscopic pores in its leaves.植物的肺就是其叶片上微细的气孔。

4 myriad   

adj.无数的；n.无数，极大数量

参考例句：

• They offered no solution for all our myriad problems.对于我们数不清的问题他们束手无策。
• I had three weeks to make a myriad of arrangements.我花了三个星期做大量准备工作。

5 transparent   

adj.明显的，无疑的；透明的

参考例句：

• The water is so transparent that we can see the fishes swimming.水清澈透明，可以看到鱼儿游来游去。
• The window glass is transparent.窗玻璃是透明的。

6 unlimited   

adj.无限的，不受控制的，无条件的

参考例句：

• They flew over the unlimited reaches of the Arctic.他们飞过了茫茫无边的北极上空。
• There is no safety in unlimited technological hubris.在技术方面自以为是会很危险。

7 bottleneck   

n.瓶颈口，交通易阻的狭口；妨生产流程的一环

参考例句：

• The transportation bottleneck has blocked the movement of the cargo.运输的困难阻塞了货物的流通。
• China's strained railroads already become a bottleneck for the economy.中国紧张的铁路运输已经成为经济增长的瓶颈。