Graphene key application areas analysis and comparison

Graphene, also known as monolayer ink, is a new type of two-dimensional nanomaterial. It is the nanomaterial with the highest hardness and toughestness found so far. Due to its special nanostructures and excellent physical and chemical properties, graphene has broad application prospects in electronics, optics, magnetism, biomedicine, catalysis, energy storage, and sensors. It is recognized as a future material and revolutionary material for the 21st century. . Graphene-related patents began to show explosive growth (353 in 2010 and 1,829 in 2012). On the whole, graphene technology has begun to enter a rapid growth period, and quickly crossed to the maturity of the technology. The competition for global R&D of graphene technology has become increasingly fierce, and the technological advantages of various countries are gradually being formed.

Graphene appeared in the laboratory in 2004 when Andrei Jem and Kostya, two scientists at the University of Manchester in the UK, discovered that they could get in a very simple way. The thinner the graphite flakes come. They strip graphite from graphite, then stick the two sides of the sheet to a special tape, tear the tape, and divide the graphite sheet in two. With this constant operation, the lamellae became thinner and thinner. Finally, they obtained a sheet consisting of only one layer of carbon atoms. This was graphene. After this, new methods for preparing graphene emerged in an endless stream. After five years of development, it has been found that the introduction of graphene into the field of industrial production is not far behind. Therefore, the two won the Nobel Prize in physics in 2010.

Graphene applications

A report recently released by the Chinese Academy of Sciences pointed out that the research and industrialization of graphene continues to heat up. From the perspective of the distribution of graphene patents, the application technology research hotspots include: graphene as a lithium-ion battery electrode material, solar cell electrode Materials, thin-film transistor fabrication, sensors, semiconductor devices, composite material preparation, transparent display touch screens, transparent electrodes, etc. Mainly concentrated in the following four areas:

(a) Energy storage and new display areas. Graphene has excellent electrical conductivity and light transmission. As a transparent conductive electrode material, graphene has a good application in touch screens, liquid crystal displays, energy storage batteries and the like. Graphene is considered to be the most promising alternative to indium tin oxide in touch screen manufacturing. Leading companies such as Samsung, Sony, Hui Rui, 3M, Toray, and Toshiba have all made key research and development arrangements in this field. Researchers at the University of Texas at Austin used KOH to chemically modify graphene to form a porous structure, and the resulting supercapacitors have an energy storage density close to lead-acid batteries. Scientists at Michigan Technological University have developed a unique honeycomb-structured three-dimensional graphene electrode with a photoelectric conversion efficiency of 7.8% and a low price that is expected to replace platinum in solar cells. Toshiba developed a composite transparent electrode of graphene and silver nanowires, and realized a large area.

(b) The field of semiconductor materials. Graphene is considered as an ideal material to replace silicon, and a large number of powerful companies have carried out the research and development of graphene semiconductor devices. Sungkyunkwan University has developed a highly stable n-type graphene semiconductor that can be exposed to the air for a long time. The University of Columbia developed a graphene-silicon photoelectric hybrid chip, which has a broad application prospect in the field of optical interconnects and low-power photonic integrated circuits. IBM researchers have developed graphene field-effect transistors with a cut-off frequency of up to 100 GHz and frequency performance that exceeds the cut-off frequency (40 GHz) of the most advanced silicon transistors with the same gate length.