Carbon Solves a Problem, Gold Poses a Puzzle

摘要

In the previous extraction of Hot Papers, reports about graphene occupied eight of the ten positions; that has now increased to nine. Only paper #7 offers something different and in the form of gold "superatoms." More about this in a minute.rnSome of the graphene papers are new to the list, and the one reaching the highest position is #5 and is about graphene ultracapacitors. Another graphene paper, at #8, is also concerned with the electrical ability of this material and in fact it might well solve the problem of what to use as a transparent conducting film for liquid crystal devices when the current material, indium tin oxide (ITO) becomes prohibitively expensive as supplies of rare indium dwindle. This metal comes mainly as a by-product of zinc and lead mining whose ores contain 1-2% of indium. There are no indium mines, nor ever likely to be.