Graphene As An Application of Nanotechnology

Carbon, once again has surprised the world as it had been doing since years. This time it is its aberrant electronic spectrum that has made it so special. Graphene, a form of carbon is a basic element of some of carbon allotrope.  This material is believed to have substantial potential to open new ways in the field of quantum physics.


Image Credit: gndtech

Instead of going much in to details of its chemical composition and properties, I would directly come to its usefulness in the technical fields. As of today, the whole electronic industry is dominated by silicon. All the electronics is basically movement of electrons and holes (carriers) across the junction. No doubt the current electronic devices are pretty fast but they show considerable difficulties in miniaturization.

So there was a need to device some material which is over silicon but at the same time cheap. So graphene is one such material. It uses the electron diffraction method than the usual electron diffusion for energy transfer.   In simple words, in such a method of energy transfer, the carriers need not actually move but they will just transfer energy to their neighboring carrier. This makes the process of energy transfer extremely fast. Graphene also has several other properties such as –

[*]Ultra – high strength
[*]Almost transparent (because of being extremely thin)
[*]Very high electrical and heat conductivity

Such properties make graphene ideal for the use in high speed electronics and manufacturing flexible displays etc. its high heat conductivity may be helpful in high heat dissipation rates and the current needs of submerged server cooling may not be actually needed ahead.

Another application of graphene is in fuel cell. To know something very basic about fuel cell, you may refer to #-Link-Snipped-#. Traditionally pencil lead is used to form platinum electrodes in fuel cells. The pencil lead corrodes easily because of the water formed and if metal oxides are used instead of pencil lead, they are less conductive. But because of the porousness graphene it is less vulnerable to erosion. So, I think if they are used to form the platinum electrodes instead of pencil lead/metal oxides would make in fuel cells stronger, cheaper and long lasting.