A graphite flake is actually like a deck of cards, it consists of many flakes with weak bonds between them. If a graphite flake is delaminated to its lowest common denominator, you are left with a one atom thick, transparent, conductive sheet of carbon atoms arranged in hexagonal rings or a honeycomb pattern. That is graphene. Graphene’s structure gives it unique optical, thermal, mechanical and electrical properties which excites engineers all over. It is stronger and more flexible then steel, conducts heat 10 times faster than copper and can carry 1,000 times the density of electrical current of copper wire. Graphene is stronger than diamonds, yet can be stretched by a quarter of its length and is flexible. This is a truly remarkable material with many exciting potential applications.
It is expected that graphene will be used in the evolution of LCD touch screen technology, the creation of super small transistors, super dense data storage, energy storage, and solar cells. The substance has been proven superior to silicon for integrated circuits and has the potential to make transistors that can operate at terahertz speeds. IBM has already developed a transistor using expandable graphite graphene that operates at more than twice the speed of silicon transistors of comparable size. Given that this design was a proof of concept design rather than a design for optimal commercial use, researchers believe they can make them faster still.
Graphene is also being touted as the future for outer space. While extremely thin it can wrap and anchor itself securely around ceramic grains during manufacturing and toughen silicon nitride ceramics by up to 200 percent. The growth of research and publications on flexible graphite graphene has been remarkable and according to a Georgia professor there are currently nearly 200 companies including Intel and IBM involved in graphene research. In 2010 it was the subject of about 3,000 research papers. The European Union and South Korea have recently started efforts to build industrial scale, next generation display materials using graphene.