The Graphene Flagship Celebrates Ten
We are approaching the 10th anniversary of the Graphene Flagship and the time has flow very quickly. Graphene Flagship Science and Technology Officer Andrea C. Ferrari looks at what has happened over the project’s last decade of graphene research and innovation work.
It's amazing what we achieved in such a limited period of time with respect to what is required by technologies to develop from the lab to the factory floor. Over the past ten years, we have gone from graphene flakes of the size of one micron to 300 millimetre wafer scale production.
We have gone from 0.01% yield in liquid phase exfoliation to multi-tonne production of graphene, and we have gone from having zero companies in Europe utilising graphene or producing graphene products to having tens and tens of companies, and hundreds and hundreds of patents distributed over the entire European Union and the UK.
We have fulfilled the vision for our initial ten years. We have exceeded it in many respects and in particular we have firmly demonstrated that graphene is not a curiosity for the lab but is a true enabler for new technologies.