New graphene treatment could unleash new uses

Graphene, a two-dimensional array of carbon atoms, has shown great promise for a variety of applications, but for many suggested uses the material requires treatments that can be expensive and difficult to apply predictably. Now, a team of researchers at MIT and the University of California at Berkeley has found a simple, inexpensive treatment that may help to unleash the material’s potential.

The new method is described in a paper published this week in the journal Nature Chemistry, co-authored by MIT doctoral students Priyank Kumar and Neelkanth Bardhan, MIT professors Jeffrey Grossman and Angela Belcher, and two others at Berkeley.