Graphene is a two-dimensional nano-material consisting of a hexagonal honeycomb lattice of carbon atoms in a SP2 hybrid orbital, with only one carbon atom thickness. It is the most likely material to trigger a new revolution in the field of Electronic Science and technology.

With regard to graphene, we need to know a few characteristics of graphene:

1.         At present, the thinnest but hardest nano-material in the world is harder than diamond and its strength is 100 times higher than that of steel in the world.
2.         Its transmittance is excellent, almost completely transparent, absorbing only 2.3% of the light;
3.         The biggest characteristic of graphene is that the velocity of electrons in graphene reaches 1/300 of the speed of light, which is far faster than that of electrons in general conductors.
4.         It has the smallest resistance in the world. Its thermal conductivity is as high as 5300w/m.k. At room temperature, its electron mobility exceeds 15,000 cm2/V.s, while its resistivity is only about 100-6 Euro.cm.
5.         Graphene structure is very stable, and the links between carbon atoms are very flexible. When external mechanical forces are applied, the surface of carbon atoms will bend and deform, so that the carbon atoms do not need to be rearranged to adapt to external forces, thus maintaining structural stability and making the carbon atoms have excellent electrical conductivity.

At present, the common preparation methods of graphene materials include mechanical peeling, chemical oxidation, crystal epitaxy growth, chemical vapor deposition, organic synthesis and carbon nanotube peeling. If there is no mistake, Samsung and Chengjunguan University adopt chemical vapor deposition (CVD), which can produce high quality and large area graphene, but the cost is high and the process is complex.

Graphene was first stripped from graphene sheets in 2004 by Professor Andre Heim and Professor Constantine Novosholov of the University of Manchester in the United Kingdom. They won the Jobel Prize for Physics in 2010. And technology giants Samsung, Jokia and IBM are also strengthening their research in this area.

Achievements and application prospects of graphene:

The future of graphene technology can be said to be bright.

At present, known and interesting achievements include:

1. The smallest and fastest transistor was born. On April 7, 2011, IBM showed the media its fastest graphene transistor, which can perform 155 billion cycles per second, 50% faster than previous experimental transistors. This is the result of a project undertaken by IBM by the U.S. Department of Defense to develop high-performance radio frequency transistors for military use.
2. Global Minimum Optical Modulator. According to U.S. media reports, Chinese businessmen in the United States have recently developed a modulator using graphene. This optical modulator, which is only 4% thin of hair, has high-speed signal transmission capability and is expected to increase the speed of the Internet by 10,000 times, which means that a high-definition movie can be downloaded in one second.
3. The first graphene capacitive touch screen for mobile phones has been successfully developed. On Jan. 8, 2012, Jiangnan Graphite Research Institute announced that the first graphene capacitive touch screen for mobile phones was successfully developed in Changzhou, which is the first in China. This also means that the application of graphene on touch screen can be changed from laboratory to commercial.
4. In August 2012, Jokia's R&D department was already working on graphene photoelectric sensors and registered a patent with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. According to the patent description, graphene photoelectric sensors are superimposed on each other through multi-layer detection and amplification layers to absorb and filter the corresponding color light.