Origami graphite

 

 

Bibliography

About me

Why is it made?

How is it made?

What is it?

Curved Kish Home

Origami

Galleries

email

 

 

Carbon precipitated onto a curved molten metal surface routinely resembles origami.  The term "graphite origami" has appeared in the literature, referring to the large universe of conceivable graphitic materials[4].  The term can be applied more literally to the most common form of curved kish graphite.  Except for the creases and kinks, this appears to be highly oriented graphite.  Thinner deposits are dendritic.

 

graphene origami wrinkle

 

My trademark origami wrinkle was precipitated from iron.
32 KB

 

origami shell with rift, millimeter scale
This origami sample has an unusual pale, sinuous rift.  The rift is pale, because thinly covered iron yields secondary electrons more efficiently than the surrounding pure carbon shell.  The rift probably formed on this sample because the melt was rapidly deforming when it was suddenly cooled.

 

 

36 KB

 

 

 

origami cross-section at edge of rift, medium scale
Upon closer inspection, several distinct layers of neatly creased graphite are evident.  The discontinuous stacking may result from the rapid deformation of the melt during the formation of the creases, or during the precipitation of the graphite itself.

31 KB

 

 

 

47 KB

 

graphite bends at rift boundary, high resolution
The highest resolution images available so far do not permit us to confidently identify the creases as twin boundaries, but these graphene origami images bear a strong resemblance to twin boundary-riddled graphite samples depicted in older literature[1,5].
Potential applications:  thermal insulation, cookware

 

EDS of this origami shell confirms it is pure carbon, Raman spectroscopy identifies graphene of micron-scale breadth (or better), and XRD confirms the crystallinity that is evident in the SEM micrograph.