The Graphene Age isn't (quite) here yet

Enlarge / Scanning electron micrograph of graphene, showing the hexagonal structure of the single layer of carbon atoms.

Lawrence Berkley National Laboratory

Graphene—a two-dimensional sheet of carbon one atom thick—is exciting stuff. Combining good electrical properties, flexibility, mechanical strength, and other advantages, graphene can seem like a miracle material, especially when potential applications are listed. Talk of graphene-based protective coatings, flexible transparent electronics, super powerful capacitors, and so forth may seem like something from a Neal Stephenson science fiction novel, but they've all been seriously considered.

The material's potential is so high that its discovery merited the 2010 Nobel Prize in physics, awarded to Andre Geim and Konstantin Novoselov. Certainly my fellow Ars Technica writers and I have spilled a lot of digital ink on the subject.

However, with so much excitement, you would be forgiven for wondering if at least some of it is hype. (After all, graphene has been around for a number of years, but we don't have our transparent computers yet.) For this reason, Nobel Laureate Konstantin Novoselov and colleagues have written a critical, yet optimistic, assessment of the state of graphene research and production.

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