Graphene, one of the most promising new materials to be developed in decades, isn’t much to look at. And it's no wonder why. Researchers discovered graphene, or one-atom-thick sheets of carbon, by mechanically peeling progressively finer layers from raw flakes of graphite, the same stuff found in pencil lead (See: “Carbon Wonderland,” by Andre K. Geim and Philip Kim, in the April issue of Scientific American).

Despite extensive efforts to develop practical applications for graphene and explore the exotic physics at work in its two dimensions, obtaining a usable sample is still more art than science, as Scientific American learned one slushy winter afternoon in the Columbia University lab of Philip Kim, one of our co-authors and a leader in the field. Then postdoctoral fellow Pablo Jarillo-Herrero (now an assistant professor of physics at Massachusetts Institute of Technology) took time out to show us how the researchers prepare graphene for study.

Click here to find out how.

Commercial Sources for Silicon Wafers and Graphite
If you are interested in trying out the procedure yourself, here’s where you can obtain the necessary materials:

Oxidized silicon wafers:
Many suppliers of semiconductor materials sell wafers of oxidized silicon, including Nova Electronic Materials of Carrollton, Tex. (www.novawafers.com/).

Bulk natural graphite:
Samples of natural graphite can be purchased from a variety of laboratory materials vendors such as NGS Naturgraphit GmbH in Leinburg, Germany (www.graphit.de/index.php?id=82&L=1).

11 Comments

1. 1. JoeScience 04:05 PM 4/15/08

   What are the future projected uses of this product?

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2. 2. haoguolin 05:49 AM 11/29/08

   What size is suitable of the graphite used in Lab when we make graphene?
   Usual adhensive tape is ok or we must use special adhensive tape?Thank you!

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3. 3. youxueqiu 09:59 PM 5/21/09

   what is the thickness of the wafer of oxidized silicon which makes graphene layers stand out under a microscope. ?

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4. 4. youxueqiu 09:59 PM 5/21/09

   what is the thickness of the wafer of oxidized silicon which makes graphene layers stand out under a microscope. ?

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5. 5. breezehair 12:37 AM 6/6/09

   I think the "piranha" should be a mix of concentrated sulfuric acid and hydrogen peroxide.

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6. 6. breezehair 12:39 AM 6/6/09

   The piranha solution is a mix of concentrated sulfuic acid and hydrogen peroxide.

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7. 7. sensiblescience 04:50 PM 6/22/09

   "Graphene, science's latest wonder material, is surprisingly easy to produce."
   
   This statement is rather funny and misleading. The whole process is very laborious and unreliable. I would have appreciated if the editor cared to mention that the graphene produced by this method is good only for fundamental research and significant advances are required for the realization of graphene-based electronic devices.

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8. 8. marcabrahams 08:39 PM 6/25/10

   Andre Geim, who discovered this method, is prolific. He won the Ig Nobel Prize in physics in 2000 (together with Michael Berry) for using magnets to levitate a frog.
   http://improbable.com/ig/winners/#ig2000

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9. 9. J.Winkler 08:06 AM 6/26/10

   We can make graphene at home, we've been to the moon and back again, our cell phones have more computing power than all early supercomputers combined. But websites force their visitors to click through 9 pages. Sigh...

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10. 10. eltimbalino 09:20 AM 6/27/10

    Note that in the grey area, between the 36um and 14um indicators there are some blue thicker fragments that instead of looking bright blue everywhere else on the plate look dull as if they have been masked over with a grey photoshopped image in additive mode?
    
    Note how all of the thicker sturdier graphite is shattered and spread around, but the ultra fragile grey layers are in perfect large trapezoids with exact straight and parallel edges?
    
    You might wonder what process could possibly have resulted in such regular shapes of one atom thick. I believe it is called faking it.

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11. 11. atroo 09:05 AM 10/7/10

    Hum, you should look more into crystal behavior and cleavage plans. If you don't believe what the conspirators claim about the properties, get a sample of something like galena and smash it yourself. The result is pretty cool!

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