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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.

Graphene Flagship researchers show how graphene oxide suspended in water biodegrades in a reaction catalysed by a human enzyme, with the effectiveness of the breakdown dependent on the colloidal stability of the suspension. ​The study should guide the development of graphene-based biomedical applications.

Electronics is based on the manipulation of electrons and other charge carriers, but in addition to charge, electrons possess a property known as spin. When spin is manipulated with magnetic and electric fields, the result is a spin-polarised current that carries more information than is possible with charge alone. Spin-transport electronics, or spintronics, is a subject of active investigation within Europe’s Graphene Flagship.

Scientists affiliated with Europe’s Graphene Flagship develop a photodetector that converts incident light into electrical signals on femtosecond timescales, enabling ultrafast operation speeds for electronic circuits in optical communications and various other applications.

Chemists from Europe’s Graphene Flagship review the potential for graphene-organic composite materials in electronics. ​The researchers show how organic semiconductors can be used to better process graphene, and to tune its properties for particular applications.

Graphene Flagship scientists observe square ice crystals between graphene layers brought together under ultra-high pressures generated by atomic interactions. The finding could lead to a better understanding of water flow through nanoscale channels and across membranes.

Graphene provides an effective shield against microwaves, say researchers from Europe’s Graphene Flagship. The finding could see this two-dimensional material used to reduce microwave pollution and enhance the electromagnetic compatibility of future nanoscale electronic devices.

11 new industrial partners join the Graphene Flagship as a result of an open Expression of Interest to bring in complementary competences and capabilities in specific areas, such as aerostructures manufacturing, biosensors, and supercapacitors.