GRAPHENE REPORT

Graphene a 1-atom-thick sheet of carbon in hexagonic crsytal lattice. 200x stronger than steel. Tougher than diamond. World's thinnest material. Flexible, transparent, conducts el and heat very well. 1st made in '04. Stocks: AIXG, CVV, FCSMF, NGPHF, GTI, CHGI, PKX

Rice U researchers created Bernal-stacked bi-layer graphene sheets. Small band gap. Every other carbon atom in hex rings of top layer sits over middle of space created by hex rings on bottom. Copper substrates. Pressure-tuned CVD chambers. Constant pressure ratio of H to methane. Higher pressure thickens the graphene film.

iTrix Corp (Japan), a graphene materials supplier, spun off new comp - Graphene Platform - for worldwide sales. 2 4" thermal CVD systems, 1 6". Also CVD-grown graphene, single layer on copper and multilayer on nickel. And graphene on PET, glass and SiO2 (single and multilayer). Multipoint Raman spectra data included with all samples.

S Korean researchers developed gold-doped graphene-based transparent and current-spreading electrode for UV LEDs. ~20% more emission over ITO LED. UV LEDs useful in germicidal instrumentation, biological agent ID, chem sensing, fluorescence excitation, optical data storage. Also emit white light through phosporescence.

Graphene Labs expanding product line. Now 2-D graphene-like materials. Also liquid suspensions of atomically-thin MoS2 and WS2 - both transition metal dichalcogenides - and BN.

Purdue researchers a while ago discovered silver nanowires dramatically increase graphene's conductivity. The nanowires bridge defects and crystal boundaries. Now U of TX researchers demo'd how it works. They grew graphene on copper using CVD. The sheet had resistance of > 1K ohms. Adding film of silver nanowires lowered R to 64 ohms. The sheet retained 94% transparency. A bi-layer graphene silver nano sheet had R of 24 ohms with 91% transparency.

Max Planck Society researching how graphene nanowire conducts el. Discovered electrons tunnel through wire by quantum mechanical process. Conductance depends on length of carbon strip and energy of electrons. But graphene wires not very useful for nano el aps. Yet.