Graphene is the bright and still rapidly rising star on the horizon of materials science and condensed matter physics, revealing a cornucopia of new physical effects and potential applications. Graphene is the thinnest material known to man. It is a mono atomically thin 2-D film of Carbon atoms arranged laterally in a honeycomb benzene ring like structure. It was previously considered to be a physically unstable form until it was shown to exist in the free state by the team at Manchester. This conceptual material is widely used to describe the crystal structure and properties of graphite, large fullerenes and carbon nanotubes. Indeed, as a first approximation, graphite is made of graphene layers relatively loosely stacked on top of each other. In the case of carbon nanotubes, they are usually thought of as graphene layers rolled into hollow cylinders.

Graphene is a zero gap semiconductor, where the charge carriers have a linear dispersion relation near the Dirac point essentially giving them zero effective mass. Room temperature carrier mobilities of the order of 25,000 cm²/Vs are routinely observed with mobilities up to approximately 200,000 cm²/Vs ultimately achievable. Transport in this system is ballistic and carriers can travel sub-micrometer distances ( typically300nm) without scattering giving it many applications for fast electronics. It is extremely transparent, yet highly conductive making it an ideal electrode material in LCD displays and solar cells. We will also show that micrometre-size sensors made from graphene are capable of detecting individual events when a gas molecule attaches to or detaches from graphene’s surface. As a suspended membrane it is sufficiently electron transparent to allow individual metallic atoms to be imaged on its surface which together with its ruggedness provides an ideal support membrane for TEM studies. These remarkable electronic and mechanical properties will be discussed together with its potential applications.

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