Materials science has witnessed a groundbreaking advancement—the emergence of a new carbon-based material, “Monolayer Amorphous Carbon” (MAC). Developed collaboratively by scientists from the National University of Singapore (NUS) and Rice University, this material has garnered widespread attention in the academic community for its exceptional strength and toughness.
Table of Contents
The Challenge of Strength and Brittleness
Even the strongest materials struggle to avoid the formation of cracks under stress, a challenge that materials scientists have long sought to overcome. Graphene, while possessing extremely high strength, is limited in its practical applications due to its brittleness. Once a crack forms, it propagates rapidly, leading to structural failure.
MAC’s Unique Structure: Combining Strength and Toughness
The discovery of MAC successfully resolves the contradiction between strength and toughness. Like graphene, MAC is a two-dimensional, or single-atom-thick, material. However, unlike graphene, MAC is not entirely crystalline. Instead, it’s a composite material consisting of interwoven crystalline and amorphous regions. This unique structure not only retains graphene’s high strength but also endows it with toughness exceeding graphene’s by eight times. It is this composite structure that gives MAC its distinctive toughness, demonstrating that a composite design approach can be an effective method for reducing the brittleness of 2D materials.
Bongki Shin, a materials science and nanoengineering graduate student at Rice University and the first author of the study, stated, “This unique structure can effectively suppress crack propagation, allowing the material to absorb more energy before fracturing.”
Expanding the Application Potential of Two-Dimensional Materials
Two-dimensional materials hold broad application prospects in fields such as electronics, energy storage, sensors, and wearable technology, due to their unique physical and chemical properties. However, their inherent brittleness has consistently been a major obstacle to practical application.
To overcome this challenge, scientists have proposed two toughening strategies:
Extrinsic toughening: Adding reinforcing nanostructures to thin films.
Intrinsic toughening: Enhancing toughness by modifying the material’s internal structure.
MAC’s structure provides an ideal reference model for studying the fracture toughness of nanocomposites, proving the feasibility of the intrinsic toughening strategy.
Scientific Validation and Future Development
Researchers used scanning electron microscopy to conduct in-situ tensile tests, observing the formation and propagation of cracks in MAC in real time. Simultaneously, Markus Buehler’s team at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) used molecular dynamics simulations to analyze how the mixture of crystalline and amorphous regions affects the material’s fracture energy at the atomic level.
“Synthesizing and imaging ultrathin disordered materials at the atomic scale is extremely challenging, something that was difficult to achieve in the past,” said Yimo Han, Assistant Professor of Materials Science and Nanoengineering at Rice University and the corresponding author of the study. “Thanks to advances in nanomaterials synthesis and high-resolution imaging techniques, we have discovered a new method to significantly enhance the toughness of two-dimensional materials without the need for additional layers.”
The research findings have been published in the international academic journal Matter, opening up new possibilities for the design and application of future two-dimensional materials. This discovery not only provides an effective strategy for overcoming material brittleness but also lays the foundation for the development of high-performance electronic components, flexible devices, and advanced sensors.
Reference
- Breakthrough Two-Dimensional Material “Monolayer Amorphous Carbon” Debuts, Eight Times Tougher Than Graphene
- A New Carbon Super-Material Is 8x Tougher Than Graphene
- Bongki Shin, Bo Ni, Chee-Tat Toh, Doug Steinbach, Zhenze Yang, Lucas M. Sassi, … Jun Lou (2025). Intrinsic toughening in monolayer amorphous carbon nanocomposites, Matter, Volume 8, Issue 4, DOI: 10.1016/j.matt.2025.102000.
（Source of the first picture: Gustavo Raskoksy/Rice University)
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