“Graphene opened up a material world we didn’t even know existed.” - Dr Andre Geim, Nobel-prize Laureate
“Use tape.” That was the advice of a graduate student to Russian-born scientist Andre Geim in his University of Manchester lab in 2003, when he was trying to figure out how to create an ultra-thin layer of graphite. Seven years later, Geim and his colleague Konstantin Novoselov won the Nobel Prize for the invention of a new substance, graphene. Dr Andrea Ferrari, who is leading a graphene research team at Cambridge University, ranks graphene with steel, plastic, and silicon in its revolutionary technological potential.
Graphene applications may ultimately permit the construction of tablet computers or smartphones the thickness of a piece of paper, which can be rolled or folded.
Graphene itself is a honeycomb carbon structure, an atom thick — essentially a two-dimensional substance. It has extraordinary properties of strength, pliability, and conductivity. Researchers at Columbia University estimated that it would take the weight of an elephant applied to a point the size of a pencil tip to puncture a graphene sheet just 10 microns thick.
Once skepticism was overcome, the patents for graphene applications have started coming in a tidal wave. Patent applicants from China, the U.S., and South Korea have sought protection for graphene ideas for a host of applications (see graphic below - Click to enlarge). The field is so hot that applicants are even said to be filing patents intended to deceive rivals about the direction of their research. Apple and Samsung already have brands in the fire.
Manufacturing is still problematic, and the material still prohibitively expensive for most of the mass applications that inventors are envisioning.
One German manufacturer estimates the cost will have to drop by a factor of 60 before it will be cost-effective as a material for transistors, and by a factor of 600 before it will be usable in touch-screen displays. But commercial use is already underway in several industries.
Predictably, the Defense Advanced Research Project Agency (DARPA) is an early investor, funding research at Northeastern University in Boston.
Graphene circuits are already being used in antitheft packaging. Saab is moving ahead in an application for deicing airplane wings. Lockheed Martin is creating a graphene membrane which it says will revolutionize the desalination of water. And Apple has applied for a patent that would use graphene as a heat dissipater in a “portable electronic device.”
As smartphones have outstripped standard cell phones in worldwide sales, and the market for mobile devices has moved closer to maturity and saturation, we’ve found ourselves wondering where the next tectonic shift could be. Graphene devices have the potential to be such a shift. We know that previous “supermaterials” have failed to live up to their expectations. But the prospect of rolling up our iPad and stuffing it in our back pocket is still enough to get us pretty excited.
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