PT  - JOURNAL ARTICLE
AU  - Hu, Meng
AU  - He, Julong
AU  - Zhao, Zhisheng
AU  - Strobel, Timothy A.
AU  - Hu, Wentao
AU  - Yu, Dongli
AU  - Sun, Hao
AU  - Liu, Lingyu
AU  - Li, Zihe
AU  - Ma, Mengdong
AU  - Kono, Yoshio
AU  - Shu, Jinfu
AU  - Mao, Ho-kwang
AU  - Fei, Yingwei
AU  - Shen, Guoyin
AU  - Wang, Yanbin
AU  - Juhl, Stephen J.
AU  - Huang, Jian Yu
AU  - Liu, Zhongyuan
AU  - Xu, Bo
AU  - Tian, Yongjun
TI  - Compressed glassy carbon: An ultrastrong and elastic interpenetrating graphene network
AID  - 10.1126/sciadv.1603213
DP  - 2017 Jun 01
TA  - Science Advances
PG  - e1603213
VI  - 3
IP  - 6
4099  - http://advances.sciencemag.org/content/3/6/e1603213.short
4100  - http://advances.sciencemag.org/content/3/6/e1603213.full
SO  - Sci Adv2017 Jun 01; 3
AB  - Carbon’s unique ability to have both sp2 and sp3 bonding states gives rise to a range of physical attributes, including excellent mechanical and electrical properties. We show that a series of lightweight, ultrastrong, hard, elastic, and conductive carbons are recovered after compressing sp2-hybridized glassy carbon at various temperatures. Compression induces the local buckling of graphene sheets through sp3 nodes to form interpenetrating graphene networks with long-range disorder and short-range order on the nanometer scale. The compressed glassy carbons have extraordinary specific compressive strengths—more than two times that of commonly used ceramics—and simultaneously exhibit robust elastic recovery in response to local deformations. This type of carbon is an optimal ultralight, ultrastrong material for a wide range of multifunctional applications, and the synthesis methodology demonstrates potential to access entirely new metastable materials with exceptional properties.