Graphene has many extraordinary properties. It is carbon, but it comes in the form of a two-dimensional, atomic thick, honeycomb lattice.
Remarkably, it is 100 times stronger than the strongest steel known to man, and is a very efficient conductor of heat and electricity. The possible applications for graphene-based electronics are myriad: they include better solar cells, OLEDs, batteries and supercapacitors, and they can also be used to make faster microchips that run on very little power.
But the downside of graphene is that it is too delicate, a fact that hinders its commercial production. But that may all change.
Brookhaven National Laboratory (BNL) stumbled upon a method to make the super material graphene more resilient and tunable. They placed graphene on top of common industrial-grade glass, which might pave the way to commercially produce graphene since this type of glass is cheap.
The results of their study can be found in this week’s copy of the journal Nature Scientific Reports.
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