Archive by category | Giulia Pacchioni

Graphene commercialization: a voice from industry

The commercialization of graphene-based products is a recurring theme in this blog. Why after much talking about graphene being a wonder material the most high-tech graphene-based product we can buy is still a tennis racket? Nature Reviews Materials asked this question to Seongjun Park, an engineer working in Samsung and studying graphene. In a Comment piece, he reminded the readers that the commercialization of new materials and technologies always takes time, often decades — optical memory devices and phase-change memories are good examples, as it took more than 30 years to take them to the market. Compared to them, graphene is still a young technology: it is only 12 years that scientists and engineers are playing with it and tweaking its properties.  Read more

2D goes 3D

2D goes 3D

If you are reading this blog, you probably already think that 2D materials are awesome. However, stacks combining several 2D materials could be even better — they open almost endless possibilities for new properties and devices, as they draw from a wide library of 2D materials with different electronic properties, ranging from insulating to metallic, conductive and superconductive, which can be mixed and matched to create hybrid structures with unique functionalities. Xiangfeng Duan and colleagues bring us on an inspiring journey to discover van der Waals heterostructures in a newly published Review in Nature Reviews Materials. Flexible and transparent electronic and optoelectronic devices based on van der Waals stacks have already been demonstrated, including tunneling transistors, vertical field-effect transistors, wearable electronics and innovative solar cells.  Read more