Graphene made superconductive by doping with lithium atoms

A team of researchers from Germany and Canada has found a way to make graphene superconductive—by doping it with lithium atoms. In their paper they have uploaded to the preprint server arXiv, the team describes the process they used and the results they obtained when testing it.

By now, most everyone in the science community is aware of graphene, the single carbon atom layer of material that is being studied to figure out how it can be mass produced and connected to other devices to take advantage of its superior electrical properties. Some have also been looking into whether the material could be made into a superconductor—prior research a decade ago showed that graphite could be made superconductive by coating it with other materials. Since that time, the search has been on to find just the right coating for graphene. Three years ago, a group in Italy created a model that suggested lithium might be the right choice, now, based on the work done by this latest team, it appears that they might have been right.