Image of the month

These are illustrations from a recent paper entitled "The closed-edge structure of graphite and the effect of electrostatic charging", by Ricardo Grau-Crespo and Victor Posligua of the Chemistry Department, with EMLab's Peter Harris and colleagues from Ecuador. The paper can be accessed here. The top picture is a transmission electron microscope image of a graphite crystal (with false colour), showing the individual graphene layers, some of which are closed at the edge. The lower image shows a similar crystal following the application of an electric charge at high temperature. The field causes the layers to separate. In the paper, computer simulations are used to analyse the formation closed edges and to explain how the application of an electric field leads to the observed separation. One of these simulations is shown at the bottom. The results may have implications for the manipulation of graphene-based nanostructures by the application of electric fields.