What you're about to discover could revolutionize everything from electronics and aerospace to transportation and energy.
It's the thinnest, strongest material on earth. And in 2010, it won Andre Geim and Konstantin Novoselov, two scientists from the University of Manchester in England, the Nobel Prize in Physics.
This potentially game-changing material is none other than graphene.
In its most basic form, graphene is simply a single layer of graphite. It's as thin as one atom.
Yet amazingly, The New York Times says, "…a sheet of it stretched over a cup of coffee could support the weight of a truck bearing down on a pencil."
That's not all that graphene has to offer, either…
- Graphene is also the world's first two-dimensional material.
- It's the lightest material in existence.
- It has the best thermal conductivity of any material, which could lead it to replace copper in computer chips.
- Graphene is the most impermeable material ever discovered.
- It's a very efficient electrical conductor that could also replace most uses of silicon in addition to copper.
- It carries the highest intrinsic mobility of any other material on earth, which is set to pave the way for faster, more efficient transistors and other various electronic components and devices.
- It's transparent and completely bendable, potentially creating a brand new slew of tablets, smartphones, computers, printers, chips and much more.
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If you'd like to learn even more about graphene, I found the video below well worth the watch.
Despite its promising characteristics though, there are certainly challenges.
One issue is that China currently supplies 80% of the world's graphite supply. This could lead to price fixing on graphite and graphene in the future.
Another issue, and currently the biggest, is figuring out a way to move graphene from the research lab to the marketplace. That's because no company has figured out a way to really manufacture it on a major scale yet.