PyroHgen

Graphene just broke a fundamental law of physics. Its electrons just did something physicists thought was impossible. For nearly 200 years, metals have obeyed the Wiedemann-Franz law – the rule that electrical conductivity and thermal conductivity always rise and fall together. But in ultra-clean graphene, researchers at the Indian Institute of Science found the opposite. As electrical conductivity increased, thermal conductivity dropped, shattering a principle taught in every physics textbook. The key lies at the “Dirac point,” a strange electronic tipping point where graphene is neither a metal nor an insulator. Here, electrons stop behaving like individual particles. Instead, they flow collectively as a nearly perfect fluid – a state called a “Dirac fluid.” This discovery doesn’t just rewrite the rules for graphene. It provides a tabletop window into extreme physics usually reserved for black holes and high-energy colliders. Scientists say this behavior could help probe mysteries of quantum entanglement, black hole thermodynamics, and the very fabric of matter itself. ["Universality in quantum critical flow of charge and heat in ultraclean graphene." Nature Physics, 2025]