| | What is graphene? Here’s what you need to know about a material that could be the next silicon
By Signe Brewster
3 hours ago
It’s strong, conductive and flexible, and research continues to find more applications. Will graphene catch on or travel the same path as carbon nanotubes? Read more »
Excerpt:
What are the critiques?
Graphene is still in an infantile stage compared to developed materials like silicon and ITO. In order for it to be widely adopted, it will need to be produceable in large quantities at costs equal to or lower than existing materials. Emerging roll-to-roll, vapor deposit and other production techniques hint that this is possible, but they’re not yet ready to bring graphene to every mobile device screen out there. Researchers will also need to continue to work at improving graphene’s transparency and conductivity in its commercial form.
 Roll-to-roll manufacturing could allow graphene to be made at large scales. Korea University
While graphene shows promise for transistors, it has a major problem: It can’t switch the flow of electricity “off” like materials such as silicon, which means the electricity will flow constantly. That means graphene can’t serve as a transistor on its own. Researchers are now exploring ways to adjust it and combine it with other materials to overcome this limitation. One technique involves placing a layer of boron nitride–another one-atom-thick material–between two layers of graphene. The resulting transistor can be switched on and off, but the electrons’ speed is slowed somewhat. Another technique involves introducing impurities into graphene.
Graphene may also be emerging too late for many of its possible applications. Electric car batteries and carbon fiber could be made with graphene, but they already rely on activated carbon and graphite, respectively — two very inexpensive materials. Graphene will remain more expensive for the time being, and may never be inexpensive enough to convince manufacturers to switch.
The world is only a decade into exploring what it can do with graphene. In contrast, silicon has been around for nearly 200 years. At the pace research is moving, we could know very soon if graphene will become ubiquitous or just another step in discovering the next wonder material.
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