Can a mobile phone be worn on the wrist like a watch?

Have you ever seen a smartphone?

Needless to say! It's such a common thing! It's just a square, some are thicker, some are thinner, people can use their fingers to tap on its bright screen and accomplish many things.

Have you ever seen a smartphone that can be worn on your wrist?

What? That's impossible! The screen of the phone must be bent, and it will definitely break if it is bent!

Ha, the impossible has now become possible! With the help of the magical material graphene, the mobile phone screen can become very soft and can display time, text and other content even when bent, so that the mobile phone can be worn on the wrist like a watch!

What is graphene?

Graphene is a new member of the carbon material family. Its "body" is composed of carbon atoms tightly arranged in a hexagonal honeycomb. Graphene was discovered in 2004, and its discoverer won the Nobel Prize in Physics in 2010.

What is so special about graphene?

Graphene is very thin. It is only one atom thick, about one-hundred-thousandth the thickness of a piece of ordinary paper. When we write on paper with a pencil, the pencil mark left behind may contain hundreds of layers of graphene.

Graphene is very strong and hard. Its strength can be 100 times that of steel, and its hardness can be comparable to that of diamond under certain conditions.

Graphene has an amazing load-bearing capacity. A single layer of graphene film, which weighs as much as a cat's whisker, can support the weight of an entire cat!

Graphene is also very soft. Even if you bend it at will, it can still maintain its original structure, so a flexible screen made of graphene can allow a mobile phone to be worn on the wrist like a watch.

Graphene is the material with the best electrical conductivity in the world and is known as the "highway of electrons". Due to its unique structure, electrons can "run" very, very fast in graphene. In the blink of an eye, electrons have "run" 1,000 kilometers. This ability of graphene not only far exceeds that of silicon materials, but also "kills" metallic silver in seconds. Some scientists believe that it will replace silicon as the mainstream material for chips.

Graphene is also an expert at conducting heat. Its thermal conductivity is more than ten times that of common gold, silver, and copper.

It is precisely because of these many "extraordinary features" that graphene is so popular. From functional clothing, heat dissipation materials (mobile phones), to batteries, coatings, lubricants, to chips and aerospace devices, graphene has appeared in all aspects of our lives.

Since its discovery, graphene has attracted the attention and enthusiasm of scientists all over the world. It is even called the "king of new materials". Everyone wants to seize the initiative in this field, and Chinese scientists will naturally not lag behind.

In 2018, the world's largest graphene research and development institution, Beijing Graphene Institute, was founded by Academician Liu Zhongfan. Under the leadership of Liu Zhongfan, Beijing Graphene Institute set its own goal - to "blaze a trail" for the research and application of graphene in my country.

That’s a big goal! How do we achieve it?

"First, maintain curiosity; second, have patience and perseverance, and don't give up easily when you fail," said Liu Zhongfan.

Liu Zhongfan has been a curious child since he was young. He always wanted to personally experiment with what he read in books. For example, he tried to play music to peppers and eggplants to see if it really helped their growth; he tried to use boiled water to irrigate the land to see if it was better than raw water...

As he grew up, Liu Zhongfan's curiosity continued to grow. He was obsessed with graphene research and persisted. He said: "I will not do anything else but graphene, and I will keep going forward to make 'useful and practical' graphene."

In 1993, Liu Zhongfan, who had studied abroad for eight years, returned to China with more than 60 boxes of instruments and equipment donated by his mentor and established his own laboratory at Peking University. He was the first to come to the laboratory every day and the last to leave at night. He worked hard all the time.

"Do one thing well, do it to the extreme, do it something that others cannot do!" This is what Liu Zhongfan has always insisted on.

With this persistence, Liu Zhongfan and his team finally developed the world's first "super graphene glass" that combines graphene and glass. They used the technology that only our country has mastered so far to allow graphene to grow directly on glass. In this way, the originally transparent glass can not only continue to transmit light, but also conduct heat and electricity with the addition of graphene, making it most suitable for mobile phone touch screens, projection screens, smart windows, and transparent radiators.

However, in Liu Zhongfan's eyes, graphene still has huge potential that has not been developed. So how can we find the use of graphene that is indispensable, the so-called "trump card" use? Academician Liu Zhongfan is still exploring.

Source: Chongqing Industry-University-Research Cooperation Promotion Association

Author: Pan Fusheng, Academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering, Professor of Chongqing University, Chairman of Chongqing Association for Science and Technology

Review expert: Mao Yi, chief expert of Chongqing Science Communication Expert Group, professor of Chongqing Electronic Engineering Vocational College

Statement: Except for original content and special notes, some pictures are from the Internet. They are not for commercial purposes and are only used as popular science materials. The copyright belongs to the original authors. If there is any infringement, please contact us to delete them.