The race is on to perfect a miracle.
Governments, companies and universities around the world are dumping billions of dollars into research on graphene, carbon sheets one atom thick, discovered a few years ago.
The first group to figure out how to cheaply and reliably produce large quantities of the “miracle material” could take a leading role in a range of industries it might soon transform — among them consumer electronics, cars, medical devices and energy production and storage.
Graphene's properties until recently were the stuff of science fiction. The strongest material tested, it is the thinnest ever made. It conducts heat and electricity far better than copper and silicon, and it's so impermeable that helium, whose atoms are small enough to leak through the walls of steel tanks, can't penetrate it.
It's as flexible as rubber and as clear as lightly tinted glass.
“It is a perfect material,” said Alexander Star, a chemistry professor who leads a nanoparticle research group at the University of Pittsburgh.
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