GRAPHENE

Graphene is the thinnest substance ever made: a single sheet of carbon atoms arranged in a hexagonal honeycomb pattern. It is as stiff as diamond and hundreds of times stronger than steel — yet at the same time is extremely flexible, even stretchable. It conducts electricity faster at room temperature than any other known material, and it can convert light of any wavelength into a current. In the decade since graphene was first isolated, researchers have proposed dozens of potential applications, from faster computer chips and flexible touchscreens to hyper-efficient solar cells and desalination membranes.

But harnessing graphene's qualities for practical use has proved a massive challenge. Graphene is complicated and expensive to make in large sheets, which usually have so many atomic-scale flaws and tears that they fail to match the amazing properties of the tiny flakes studied in the laboratory. And even if its quality were good, there are no well-established industrial methods for handling something so thin, or for integrating it with other materials to create useful products. What's more, graphene has a superweakness. Its electrons may be extremely mobile, but other properties make it fundamentally unsuitable for the sort of on–off switching that lies at the heart of digital electronics.

Hence Mr G's call to arms. The character was created in 2011 to help publicize a multinational push for a Graphene Flagship project: a decade-long, €1-billion (US$1.35-billion), all-European effort to take graphene from the laboratory bench to the factory floor. And not just graphene. The project's proponents also wanted to study more than a dozen other atomically thick materials discovered in graphene's wake — that, when sandwiched together with graphene, might help to overcome its limitations¹.