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Researchers with Europe’s Graphene Flagship have demonstrated superconducting electric currents in the two-dimensional material graphene that bounce between sheet edges without scattering. This first direct observation of the ballistic mirroring of electron waves in a 2d system with supercurrents could lead to the use of graphene-based Josephson junctions in applications such as advanced digital logic circuits, ultrasensitive magnetometers and voltmeters.

Keynote presentations on the third day of Graphene Week 2015 offered an eclectic mix of fundamental science and practical chemical engineering. Here we report briefly on each of the talks, beginning with an introduction to optoelectronics in 2d semiconductors and heterostructures, and concluding with an outline of a highly promising ‘kitchen sink’ approach to graphene production.

Graphene Week 2015 was buzzing with activity throughout the University of Manchester venue, with more than 600 delegates presenting and discussing their work, networking and making plans for the future. Each morning of the conference was given over to plenary sessions, with keynote presentations from invited speakers. Here we report on the Tuesday plenary, which was devoted to the electronic properties of graphene and related layered materials.

Graphene Week 2015 saw the launch of Women in Graphene, a support network for women in graphene and related 2d materials research. As in other areas of science and engineering, women make up significant proportion of the 2d materials workforce, but they face a number of gender-specific barriers to career progression.

Two of the fringe sessions at the recent conference in Manchester were devoted to the publishing of scientific research. The first of these was organised by Institute of Physics Publishing, which produces a number of academic journals, other periodicals and books. Another session was hosted by editors from Nature Publishing Group, responsible for Nature and a large number of thematic journals, some of which are used extensively by graphene researchers.

Graphene Week 2015 in Manchester saw the BBC World Service in town to record an episode of The Forum – a radio discussion programme that tackles the big questions of our age with some of the world’s most eminent thinkers, movers and shakers.

Graphene Week 2015 has drawn to a close after a hugely successful conference in Manchester. More than 600 delegates at the Graphene Flagship event last week presented and discussed a mass of outstanding science and engineering research results, and took part in a number of fringe sessions, including a BBC World Service panel discussion and an open forum. They also enjoyed the premiere of Graphene Suite – a musical composition by the National Graphene Institute’s composer-in-residence.

Graphene Week 2015 is awash with outstanding research results, but one presentation has created quite a stir at this Graphene Flagship conference. To a stunned audience, Robert Roelver of Stuttgart-based engineering firm Bosch reported on Thursday that company researchers, together with scientists at the Max-Planck Institute for Solid State Research, have created a graphene-based magnetic sensor 100 times more sensitive than an equivalent device based on silicon.

At Graphene Week 2015 in Manchester yesterday, delegates and others were treated to the premiere of a musical suite by Sara Lowes, composer-in-residence at the National Graphene Institute. Sara’s Graphene Suite was commissioned by Brighter Sound, a Manchester-based producer of creative music projects and other cultural events.

In a previous article, we looked at keynote presentations from the first day of Graphene Week 2015 in Manchester. Here we outline the contributed science talks from the first day of the conference, of which there were nine in each of two parallel sessions.

Graphene Week 2015 is hosted by the University of Manchester in northern England, and it was from this world-renowned centre of trade, industry and technology that the Nobel Prize-winning revolution in graphene and related two-dimensional materials was launched.

In the previous article, we looked at keynote presentations from the first day of Graphene Week 2015 in Manchester. Here we report on Graphene Focus, an open forum to which researchers, industrialists and the general public were invited to contribute questions. Graphene Focus is but one of many ways in which the Graphene Flagship makes itself accountable to the world beyond the research community, industry and the political establishment.

Graphene Week is the centrepiece of the Graphene Flagship calendar, and this year the conference takes place at the University of Manchester in northern England. The city of Manchester, renowned the world over as a centre of trade, technology and innovation, is home to the UK’s National Graphene Institute. It is also the research base of Andre Geim and Kostya Novoselov, the lauded scientists who in 2010 won the Nobel Prize in Physics for their pioneering work on the properties of graphene.

Launched in October 2013, the Graphene Flagship has now been sailing for a little over a year. Much has been achieved in this short time, yet we are only a tenth of the way on a voyage that we hope will take graphene and related materials from academic laboratories into society.