Highly Warped Graphene Discovered

Scientists in Japan and the U.S. have discovered a previously unreported form of carbon—highly warped nanosized graphene sheets (Nat. Chem. 2013, DOI: 10.1038/nchem.1704). The finding underscores carbon’s ability to adopt multiple forms and may eventually lead to opto­electronic applications that exploit this form’s unique electronic and optical properties. Until the 1980s, conventional wisdom taught that carbon adopts only two ordered forms: diamond and graphite. Since then, the list has grown to include buckyballs, nanotubes, planar graphene sheets, and others. Kenichiro Itami of Nagoya University, Lawrence T. Scott of Boston College, and coworkers prepared nanosized crystallites of the warped form from the polycylic aromatic hydrocarbon corannulene by using C–H activation reactions. On the basis of X-ray crystallography and other analyses, the team finds that the 26-ring C₈₀H₃₀ product (shown) is chiral and consists of five seven-membered rings and one five-membered ring embedded in an otherwise hexagonal carbon lattice.