Wonder material finally created in bulk

Carbyne, hailed as a wonder material due to its physical properties, has been created in large amounts by researchers at Vienna University.

The material was first theorised in 1885 by Adolf von Baeyer, who predicted it would remain elusive    as its high reactivity would lead to its immediate destruction. It wasn’t until the 1960s that Russian scientists successfully created carbyne, a one dimensional material made entirely from carbon. Until 2003, the longest chain of carbon atoms was around 100 atoms long.

Lei Shi, first author of the paper, said: “The direct experimental proof of confined ultra-long linear carbon chains, which are two orders of magnitude longer than the longest proven chains so far, are a promising step toward the final goal of unravelling the holy grail of truly one dimensional carbon allotropes, carbyne.”

The properties of carbine are believed to exceed that of any known material. It’s presumed to be twice as stiff as graphene, 40 times stiffer than diamond as well as possessing a higher tensile strength than any other carbon material.

To create such large amounts of carbyne, Dr Thomas Pichler and his research team proceeded to press two graphene layers together and roll them into carbon nanotubes. The nanotubes protected the carbyne from reacting and allowed chain lengths of more than 6,000 atoms to be built. Evidence of the length of the carbon chains was determined using transmission electron microscopy, X-ray diffraction and Raman spectroscopy.

Angel Rubio, from the Max Planck Institute for Structure and Dynamics of Matter said: “This work provided an example of a very efficient and fruitful collaboration between experiments and theory in order to unravel and control the electronic and mechanical properties of low-dimensional, carbon-based materials.”

The study was published in Nature Materials.