Graphene

Graphene is a substance made from pure carbon.

Andre Geim and Kostya Novoselow discovered graphene in 2004.

What is graphene?

The ingredients in this thermoelectric recipe include carbon nanotubes, polymers and a carbon material called graphene, which is a nanoparticle.

Could graphene be used to make a cable for a space elevator?

Ioannou said someday, graphene may be very useful for smartphone displays, supercapacitors and nanoantennas for nanomachines that could talk to each other.

Graphene is the first man-made two-dimensional material. It is actually only a one-atom-thick layer of pure carbon. It is closely related to nanotubes, and microscopic graphite balls called fullerenes.

In 2004, two scientists at the University of Manchester in England isolated a carbon-based material called graphene, with some unusual properties.

Graphene is basically graphite, like the core of pencils, but its neatly-arranged and tightly-woven atoms make it 200 times stronger than a steel sheet of the same thickness.

“The real bottleneck is to find out the technique to make large area graphene layers and that’s not yet possible, I don’t think, but there is a lot of research going on,” he said.

Graphene is the strongest, thinnest material known to exist. A form of carbon, it can conduct electricity and heat better than anything else. And get ready for this: It is not only the hardest material in the world but also one of the most pliable. Only a single atom thick, it has been called the wonder material. Graphene could change the electronics industry, ushering in flexible devices, supercharged quantum computers, electronic clothing and computers that can interface with the cells in your body.

As a microbullet impacts the graphene, the diameter of the cone it creates – determined by later examination of the petals – provides a way to measure how much energy the graphene absorbs before breaking.

Graphene, which consists of monolayers of carbon atoms bonded in a repeating hexagonal pattern, is the thinnest known material. It was isolated in 2004 at the University of Manchester by Andre Geim and Konstantin Novoselov, who went on to win a Nobel prize for their discovery.