Graphene appears to be moving towards industrial relevance at a greater pace than other recent materials breakthroughs. We think it is because graphene and nanotubes carry a couple of inherent advantages; a low barrier to entry and a broad technology base. Low barrier to entry – nearly any laboratory in the world can afford to do cutting edge research when it is not dependent upon exotic tools. A broad base – significant contributions are not just coming from materials science and solid state physics fields, but also a vast number of chemists, electrical engineers and even molecular biologists. While startups like Graphene Energy, Vorbeck Materials and XG Sciences are already commercializing the material and/or applications of graphene such as ultracapacitors; it seems we are just scratching the surface of potential applications as a lubricant, to enhance strength or as an electronic material.
The fall meeting of the Materials Research Society beginning December 1st will feature a session on the “Large-Area Electronics from Carbon Nanotubes, Graphene, and Related Noncarbon Nanostructures” with more than 125 submitted papers on these materials and their applications. Besides ultracapacitors, talks include the use of graphene in membranes, gas sensors, field effect transistors, and transparent electrodes.
One such example of progress, which seems to be coming at an increased pace, was featured yesterday in the RSC Chemistry World Blog. It reports on a paper by Professor R. Kitaura et al at Nagoya University on how to create single atom metal wires inside double-wall carbon nanotubes.
Carbon nanotubes with metal wires. Credit: Kitaura et al and Wiley-VCH
The process offers the potential to create devices with novel hybrid carbon nanotube and metal electronic properties, as well as the obvious creation of three dimensional nanoscale electronics.
Also note two new dedicated blogs that have been hatched to focus on graphene: Graphene-Info.com and Graphene Times.
