Presenter：Rodney S. Ruoff , Center for Multidimensional Carbon Materials (CMCM), Institute for Basic Science (IBS) (Republic of Korea), Ulsan National Institute of Science and Technology (UNIST) (Republic of Korea)
Topic：I. Metacognition. Why…?
II. Studies of C, and B&N, dissolved in metal flux
III. Tensile loading mechanics of macroscale single crystal graphene
Time：9:30 AM, June 15th
Location：909-B
Abstract:
(I) Metacognition—Thinking about my thinking. We celebrate what we created—but what did we overlook, and why?. See: Nature 1993, 364 (6437), 514-516. DOI: 10.1038/364514a0 and Physical Review Letters 1994, 73 (5), 676-679. I’ll talk about this for a few minutes.
(II) On Earth circa 2026, far more natural graphite (G) than diamond (D) is mined/processed, and far more synthetic G than D is made. In metric tons: ~1,500,000 to ~24 (G to D, natural) and ~3,500,000 to ~3,100 (G to D, synthetic). D&G are almost isoenergetic at 273K and 1 atm and the same is true for hexagonal boron nitride (hBN) and cubic boron nitride (cBN). E.g., ΔHf of D at STP is about the same as ΔHvap of liquid neon at its boiling point of 27K, and about 1/10 the enthalpy of an H-bond in liquid water. (Note that graphite is the standard state at STP.)
My view: The standard explanation for graphite’s dominance over diamond (in textbooks, published literature, and answers by ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, etc.) rests—incorrectly, in my opinion—on the remarkably small difference in Gibbs free energies between infinite, defect-free crystals. In our real world, do we ever have such ideal and infinite crystals? (No.) How might we synthesize D in new ways? I will discuss this. [3] Nature. 2023, 629, 348-354 DOI: 10.1038/s41586-024-07339-7.
(III) Tensile loading mechanics of large-area monolayer single crystal graphene (SCG) and single crystal monolayer hBN. Macroscale SCG is incredibly strong!
Biography：
Rodney S. Ruoff, UNIST Distinguished Professor (Chemistry, Materials Science, and Energy Science and Chemical Engineering), directs the Center for Multidimensional Carbon Materials (CMCM), an IBS Center at UNIST. Prior to joining UNIST in 2014, he was the Cockrell Family Regents Endowed Chair Professor at the University of Texas at Austin from September 2007. He earned his Ph.D. in Chemical Physics from the University of Illinois-Urbana in 1988 and was a Fulbright Fellow in 1988–89 at the Max Planck Institute für Strömungsforschung in Göttingen, Germany. He was at Northwestern University from 2000 to 2007, where he was the John Evans Professor of Nanoengineering and director of NU’s Biologically Inspired Materials Institute, and conducted research at the Molecular Physical Laboratory, SRI International for six years after a postdoctoral fellowship at IBM TJ Watson Research Center.
Contact：Prof. Sun Baoquan