????稀土的替代品？

????2010年，曼徹斯特大學（University of Manchester）的兩名研究人員因為在石墨烯材料領域的工作而榮獲諾貝爾物理學獎。石墨烯是一種蜂巢狀的單層碳原子材料，厚度只相當于一個原子。超極輕薄的特性使這種材料具有光明的實用前景——最終，科學家希望使用石墨烯制造晶體管，也就是說，用它造出只有一張紙那么薄的電腦。

????沃頓商學院麥克科技創新中心（Wharton’s Mack Center）常務董事邁克爾?湯姆奇科指出，盡管生產出這種設備的那一天還很遙遠，但石墨烯很快就可以應用到其它用途上。石墨烯的特性與目前生產平板電腦、太陽能電池、智能手機等電子產品所需用到的稀土很像。雖然稀土類金屬的總量并不算稀少，但是現在獲得稀土正變得越來越困難。湯姆奇科說：“稀土將變得極為稀缺和昂貴，到2030年，我們甚至可能再也無法獲得稀土。”他補充道：“石墨烯并不是高級材料領域唯一的‘下一件大事’，但目前隨著稀土類稀有金屬的日益稀缺，我們必須盡快找到它的替代物，而石墨稀為我們提供了一種解決方案。”

????Replacement rare earths?

????In 2010, two University of Manchester researchers won a Nobel Prize in physics for their work on a material called graphene. Graphene is a honeycomb-shaped sheet of carbon atoms arranged one-atom thick. That ultra-thinness gives the material useful properties -- ultimately, scientists want to use graphene to build transistors, or, say, a paper-thin computer.

????While those devices are a ways off, other graphene applications are coming shortly, says Michael Tomczyk, managing director at Wharton's Mack Center for Technological Innovation. Graphene has properties similar to rare earth metals currently used in electronic devices such as tablets, solar cells, and smartphones. While these metals are not rare in terms of gross volume, they are becoming increasingly tougher to access. Rare earths, says Tomcyzk, "will become prohibitively scarce and expensive or possibly unavailable by 2030." He adds, "Graphene is not only 'the next big thing' in advanced materials. It is a solution to the pending extinction of a whole category of rare materials that we will need to replace, and soon."