Graphene Technology

We are in a time where new technologies and innovative researches make headlines every day, sometimes they blossom into actual products, at others they just slowly die out. But this miracle material I’m writing about is by no means dying anytime soon. The whole academic, industrial and the business world is humming with the possibilities that Graphene can bring into our electronics – in fact reshape our lives altogether.

Graphene is a one-atom thick layer of carbon atoms arranged in a honeycomb (hexagonal) lattice. So, separating layers of graphite lattice gives us graphene. This special atomic arrangement gives it very unique properties. For example, it conducts electricity almost at the speed of light making it the best conductor ever, it’s tougher than diamond yet more flexible then the “strap of a wrist watch”. And these are but just two of its innumerable and exciting properties.

Kostya Novoselova (a Russian-born, British citizen), along with Andre Geim (a Russian-born Dutch-British national), won the Nobel Prize in Physics in 2010 for isolating graphene. Their method was as simple as coating graphite with scotch-tape and striping it off, with the result that a thin layer came off with it. This simple yet successful method has come to be known as the “The Scotch Tape Method”.

It started with these two brilliant physicists messing around a spare lab on the University of Manchester Campus trying to develop a graphite transistor, which they eventually succeeded in doing but as Novoselov says and I quote “Science usually works with the goal being overtaken by side tracks which are much more interesting”, and thus the gateway to a whole new era of development in the electronics world was found.

Imagine folding cell phones with unbreakable touch screens, ^paint powering our homes , solar panels being painted onto surfaces, batteries with infinitely higher capacities, and what not! Yes this and a lot more is possible if only someone can find an economically viable way to produce graphene because up till now it has only been produced in very small amounts. But the industrial need, if they are to shift to this new technology, is very high of course. The largest sheet ever produced was about a 30-inch square, by Samsung .

Once mass produced, graphene can find applications in military, navy, medical diagnostics, drug delivery, bionic devices, pin-sharp environmental monitoring, protective coatings for everything from food packaging to wind-turbines, huge amounts of fresh water through desalination membranes, easy clean-up of radioactive waste, dramatically faster computer chips and broadband, solar panels that could be painted or sprayed on to any surface and the list goes on and on and on.

It could also power sensors because graphene’s supreme conductivity makes it a top notch sensor, as even single atom change in the atmosphere around it causes changes in its electrical propertieswhich can then be measured. That could enable graphene sensors to detect the tiniest changes in the body and use this information to control drug delivery mechanisms – say, insulin.

One of the graphene related applications already successful are the graphene inks that can be used in the same way as any other ink.  There is one big difference though, these inks conduct electricity which means circuits can simply be sprayed on to almost anything. Imagine that! You no longer need to patch all those wires to switch on a simple LED.

There is a reason every large business, researches facilities, and even the European Union are funding billions worth of projects for the development of this technology:

            They all recognize the potential of this seemingly simple material!

 That is why only nine years after graphene was first isolated, it is being projected as the key to myriad of potential applications.

Currently, the same two physicists are working on a concept which they call by-layer graphene, which involves combining it with other single-atom-layer materials. They plan to develop a 100 fold faster computer using this technology.

The Center for Graphene Devices and Systems at MIT is working to create a printing press for graphene based on the same technology now used to print newspapers. If successful they’ll have the basic technology required to print kilometre long sheets of graphene which could help launch an entire industry based on this magical material. We could then say good bye to silicon and embrace a whole new era, taking human creativity to a whole new level.

A lot of money is being spent, a lot of brains used, let’s hope we can eventually witness all the thought-of applications of graphene turn into reality.

Owing to the diverse and almost too-good-to-be-real applications of graphene, the excitement surrounding it understandable and, for me, almost tangible. Do you feel it?

-Amna Aziz