Move over, graphene — there’s a new wonder material on the block. Researchers at Rice University have created monolayer amorphous carbon (MAC), a two-dimensional material only an atom thick that boasts an astonishing advantage: it’s about eight times tougher than graphene.
Graphene has long been the celebrity material of science — stronger than steel, lighter than paper, and extremely conductive. Yet, there’s a catch: it’s brittle.
One crack, and graphene can fail spectacularly, limiting how it’s used in real-world devices. MAC, on the other hand, may be the breakthrough that overcomes this weakness. By blending regions of crystalline order with patches of amorphous, disordered carbon, scientists engineered a structure that stubbornly resists fracture.
“This unique design prevents cracks from propagating easily, allowing the material to absorb more energy before breaking,” explained Bongki Shin, the study’s first author.
Imagine a fabric where tiny flaws don’t unravel the whole piece but instead redirect and stall, preserving its strength. That’s what MAC accomplishes — at the size of individual atoms.
The magic lies in how these ordered and disordered regions interact. Instead of turning brittle under stress, cracks in MAC tend to branch, slow down, or stop altogether.
This means that the material doesn’t just resist stretching — it keeps its cool under pressure. Even better, simulations at MIT confirmed what Rice scientists saw: a higher fracture energy that makes the material remarkably resilient.
Flexible electronics, foldable devices, aerospace sensors, and wearable medical technologies all rely on super-thin layers that must withstand stress without shattering. Graphene brought us part of the way there, but MAC might finally unlock products that bend, stretch, and survive daily use while staying wafer-thin.
And here’s the kicker — MAC is produced through the same methods already used for making graphene. That means scaling production into industrial applications could happen sooner rather than later. As Professor Jun Lou notes, this strategy might not stop at carbon; other two-dimensional materials could be redesigned with similar internal architectures to boost their durability.
It’s early days, of course. For now, testing is focused on how MAC behaves under tension, with future studies planned for bending, shear, and long-term wear. But preliminary findings even suggest it could double as a tunable electronic insulator, opening doors to coatings, circuits, and beyond.
If brittle graphene was like fine China, then MAC might just be the titanium of two-dimensional materials — thin, strong, and built to last.
Curious about how this breakthrough unfolded at the atomic level? Don’t miss the full article on Earth.com.
