Highly Ordered Pyrolytic Graphite
The story of "Kish graphite"
The story of Kish graphite:
Kish graphite, at one time, was a by-product of the steel-making process. The more modern
steel making processes do not result in the generation of Kish graphite, but in earlier times
it was produced during the cooling of molten steel.
Some early researchers (we have been trying to collect literature references on this but so
far have not been successful) recognized the potential for using Kish graphite, which exhibited
the phenomenon of micaceous cleavage (and in that respect, was perhaps a precursor to modern-day
HOPG), for producing spectrometer crystals and also, for the making of atomically smooth
surfaces. However, the shortcomings of:
a) high impurity levels and
b) smallness of size (never more than 4 or 5 mm in overall dimension)
rendered it to the classification of "curiosity". Furthermore, the available thickness was
well under one mm and the extent of the crystal orientation (or mosaic spread in today's
terminology) was variable and difficult to determine.
But it is our understanding that there was produced, in a laboratory in Japan, some small
chip-sized pieces of Kish graphite which were evaluated for their potential application as
spectrometer crystals or atomically flat substrate materials. But because of all the above
referenced shortcomings, the material was never commercialized.
In view of this background history, which we believe to be correct but would stand corrected
if someone were to tell us otherwise, anyone trying to do experiments with Kish graphite would
find that the SPI Supplies Brand of HOPG would be
the modern day equivalent of Kish graphite.
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Saturday July 04, 2009
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