Graphene guru Pablo Jarillo-Herrero of Columbia University set me straight on the miraculous flakes of carbon.

-There were 180 papers published on graphene in the last year, but less than 10% were experimental.

-If it’s five or more atomic layers thick, then it’s just plain old graphite.

-If it’s 1-2 layers thick, the electrons think they are confined to two dimensions and the fun begins.

-Graphene is compatible with silicon fabrication processes and transistors can be made from graphene.

-Graphene has high electon mobility and is a superb heat conductor, which could allow graphene transistors to operate at vey high frequencies.

– A paper presented here at the APS has claimed that graphene grown on SiC has an electron energy gap of ~250 meV, which Jarillo-Herrero says is enough to make room temperature transistors.

-Graphene is not flat and its undulating surface affects its electronic properties

-The undulations could be a way of damping out thermal vibrations and therefore graphene could become flat below a certain temperature

-Graphene provides a laboratory for studying a range of fascinating phenomena including the quantum Hall effect, Berry’s phase and Dirac fermions