The latest flavor of graphene is something the researchers who invented it are calling GraphExeter. While the name itself is not big on originality—just combining the words graphene with Exeter (the name of the University where the researchers are affiliated)—it does seem to have some superlative characteristics.
“GraphExeter could revolutionize the electronics industry,” says Craciun in the university press release. “It outperforms any other carbon-based transparent conductor used in electronics and could be used for a range of applications, from solar panels to ‘smart’ teeshirts. We are very excited about the potential of this material and look forward to seeing where it can take the electronics industry in the future.”
Craciun and her colleagues initially published their work in the Wiley journal Advanced Materials where the description is not quite as bold as the university press release. Nonetheless the abstract does say that GraphExeter “outperforms the current limit of transparent conductors such as indium tin oxide, carbon-nanotube films, and doped graphene materials.”
It seems that the material’s capability as a superior transparent conductor makes it an ideal candidate for optoelectronic devices. So this latest news represents quite a recent run for graphene in optoelectronics applications following IBM’s announcement earlier in the week.
The researchers say that potential applications include photovoltaics and wearable electronics among many others. An ambitious list to say the least, but the researchers do point out that looming bottleneck of using indium tin oxide (ITO) for transparent conducting electrodes provides a strong motivation to find an alternative.
Whether a shortage of ITO will be enough to get the electronics industry to adopt a material that has just been invented remains to be seen. So I think we will see some evolutions to this material’s development before we see any revolution occur to the electronics industry.
