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Phoenix666 writes:

Researchers at Rice University have used computer models to demonstrate that graphene's flexibility can be exploited in another way: by twisting it to alter its electrical properties.

In research published in the Journal of Physical Chemistry Letters, the Rice researchers, in collaboration with a scientist in Moscow, used computer models to show how to produce in graphene the so-called flexoelectric effect in which a material exhibits a spontaneous electrical polarization brought on by a strain.

It is well known that graphene is a great conductor when it is laid flat on a plane so that all of its atoms have a balanced electrical charge. However, if you put a curve in that plane of graphene, the electron clouds of the bonds on the concave side compress while on the convex side they stretch. This changes the electric dipole moment, which is a measure of the overall polarity and determines how polarized atoms interact with external electric fields.

The amazing material gets even amazinger...