Graphene Works and Plays Well With Other Materials

Dean Sigler Electric Powerplants, Sustainable Aviation Leave a Comment

Graphene is a highly promising material, one atom thick, strong enough to support an elephant standing on a pencil (only theoretically so far, with no actual demonstration having taken place), and electrically conductive.  All these properties bode well for its use in batteries, solar cells, and even energy-storing structural members.  One concern, however, has been in how graphene would interact with other materials in a practical setting.  After all, so far most experiments with graphene have taken place at the atomic level, not a feasible working arrangement for the ham-handed and those without scanning electron microscopes in their garage workshops. Dr. Marc Gluba and Professor Dr. Norbert Nickel of the Helmholz Zentrum Berlin have, doubtless with some pretty intense tools available at their Institute for Silicon Photovoltaics, managed to coat a graphene film with a thin silicon film. According to the Institute, “They grew graphene on a thin copper sheet, next transferred it to a glass substrate, and finally coated …