Research casts light on graphene’s use in flexible electronics

Scientists there have made use of graphene’s unique properties to fashion new 2D designer materials that could be utilised to create light emitting devices for the next-generation of mobile phones, tablets and televisions that are incredibly thin as well as flexible, durable and even semi-transparent.

The team was led by Sir Kostya Novoselov, joint winner for the 2010 Nobel Prize for Physics for ground-breaking experiments with graphene, and the breakthrough was made by creating LEDs that were engineered on an atomic level, constructing them by combining 2D crystals made from varying materials.

Being so thin, at only 10-40 atoms thick, the new components are capable of forming the basis for the first generation of semi-transparent smart devices, which emit light from across their whole surface. The components could be used to build heterostructures – stacked layers of various 2D materials – to create new possibilities for graphene-based optoelectronics, tailoring the devices’ capabilities by varying the materials used to make them. They could also be used to introduce new types of quantum wells to control the movement of electrons.