The first device based on graphene will appear on the market "in the next two months"
Russian immigrants working in Britain, Konstantin Novoselov and Andrei Geim, created graphene, a translucent carbon layer one atom thick, in 2004. From that moment, almost immediately and everywhere, we began to hear laudatory odes about a variety of amazing material properties that have the potential to change our world and find their application in various fields, ranging from the production of quantum computers to the production of filters to get clean drinking water. 15 years have passed, but the world under the influence of graphene has not changed. Why?
The problem lies not only in the fact that graphene is very expensive and difficult to produce (therefore, today it is created only in small quantities), but also in the fact that almost all graphene that is commercially available today is a fake. But very soon this may change, according to statements from the press release of the University of Cambridge, which states that the new company Paragraf, created by former employees of one of the most prestigious educational institutions in the world, has found a way of mass commercial production of this wonderful material.
The company itself was founded in 2018 by three researchers: Professor Colin Humphries from the Department of Materials Science, University of Cambridge, as well as scientists Simon Thomas and Ivor Guini.
This week on the website of the University of Cambridge, information appeared that Paragraf started the production of graphene on a commercial scale - in the form of 8-inch (20 cm) graphene plates, using a production method that was developed by three scientists in 2015. It also explains that the company was able to manufacture high-grade graphene plates, beating not only other research groups from around the world, but also such giants in the semiconductor industry as IBM, Intel and Samsung, which, of course, also work in this direction.
In addition, the press release states that Paragraf is going to present the first electronic device based on graphene in the “next two months”.
Despite the fact that the source does not specify what it will be for the device, the potential applications of graphene, at least in theory, are almost limitless, since it has so many useful properties. For example, this material is 200 times stronger than steel and has 10 times more thermal conductivity than copper, a conductor that is massively used in the manufacture of very different electronics.
In addition, compared with the same silicon (the main material for the production of various microchips), graphene has a 250 times higher electrical conductivity. A press release from the University of Cambridge also states that if we replace the currently used silicon-based microchips with those based on graphene, we can increase the performance and speed of electronics based on them tenfold; and various chemical and electrical sensors based on graphene will be 30 times more accurate than those based on more traditional materials.
"The Paragraf company has the potential to transform a wide range of industries, including electronics, energy and medicine," said the words of the head of the company Colin Humphreys University of Cambridge.