Graphenea - Page 9

Researchers from the ICFO, MIT, Max Planck and Graphenea have demonstrated that graphene is able to concert a single photon into several electrons (most materials generate a single electron in such a case). This means that Graphene is highly efficient in converting light to energy and can be an alternative material for light detection and energy harvesting.

The researchers used a single sheet of graphene and sent a known number of photos with different colors (energies). High energy photos (violet colored for examples) create more electrons than low energy photos (such as infrared colored ones).

New research done by Nokia shows that mechanically flexible all-solid state batteries can be made from monolayer graphene (provided by Graphenea and grown by CVD directly onto copper foil). The total thickness of the resulting battery was about 50 micrometer. The complete structure is a cathode graphene (on copper foil), polymer electrolyte, and anode lithium foil

The researchers report that the ultrathin battery showed the highest energy density of 10 W h L^-1 and the highest power density of 300 W L^-1. It also shows excellent cyclic stability and sustains a discharge current density of 100 microA cm^-2 over 100 cycles, maintaining energy capacity over 0.02 mA h cm^-2.

The ten-year European graphene research program (called FET - Graphene Flagship) was awarded €1 billion. This project includes 74 partners, and Spain's Graphenea was happy to tell us that their the main graphene producer for this project.

Graphenea has a pilot line with a capacity of 50,000 cm²/year of CVD graphene. The company plans to extend this line to 130 milion cm²/year in the near future (that's 2600 times the current capacity!).

Graphenea has launched an online store, and the company now offers several graphene materials including CVD graphene films (on SiO₂, copper and any substrate that the customer provides), graphene oxide and reduced graphene oxide. The company is also building a distribution network in main graphene markets (such as the US, Japan and Korea).

Graphenea has a pilot line with a capacity of 50,000 cm²/year and they plan to expand it during 2013. Graphenea says that their customer list includes Nokia, Philips, Corning and ASML.

Researchers from the University of California have used a beam of infrared light to send ripples of electrons along the surface of graphene. The length of heights of the plasmons oscillations can be controlled using a simple electrical circuit.

It was already suspected that plasmons will be present on graphene, but this is the first real demonstration. The actual device used is a sheet of graphene on a silicon dioxide chip.

Graphenea says that they have finished the expansion works in their labs, and their production capacity has been increased X3 times. The company installed CVD growth and transfer equipment including an Aixtron BM Pro CVD system. The labs now have characterization facilities like Raman, SEM, FEI Titan TEM and AFM.

Graphenea's labs are based in the Nanotecnology Center CIC nanoGUNE in San Sebastian, Spain.