Over the past few years there has been an explosion of graphene-related news being reported throughout all avenues of media yet many people are unaware of what graphene is and why there is so much fuss over this mystery material.

So, what is graphene?

Also referred to as two-dimensional (2D) graphite, graphene is a planar mono-layer of tightly-packed carbon atoms arrayed into a honeycomb lattice (think of an ultrathin sheet of chicken wire). Graphene also serves as the basic building block of graphitic materials by being wrapped up into 0D fullerenes (a ball), rolled into 1D nanotubes, or layered into 3D stacks. Aside from being one of the thinnest, lightest, and strongest materials known, graphene is attractive to materials scientists and electrical engineers because of its unique electrical properties as a semi-conductor. Researchers have already exploited the unusual but versatile properties of graphene to build electronic components such as nanotransistors and ultracapacitors that may soon replace the current larger silicon-based ones.

Discovery
As it’s known today, the discovery of graphene is often attributed to Andre Geim and colleagues following their characterization of the material as a mono-layer in a 2004 Science publication. Historically, however, graphene was considered as “academic material” (i.e., it had no practical applications) and had been extensively studied since the 1960s but only in the multi-layer form. After the 2004 study in which Geim et al. were able to isolate mono-layer graphene by using adhesive tape to repeatedly exfoliate layers of a graphene crystal to a single atomic plane, the promising properties of 2D graphene has led to a research boom in the fields of materials science and condensed-matter physics. Although numerous methods (notably epitaxial growth on silicon carbide or metal substrates) for producing graphene have been developed albeit in small and/or “impure” quantities, it is expected that graphene production and application will take quantum leaps in a few short years.

Applications
The potential applications of graphene to electronic devices are seemingly limitless. Here are a few that have already been developed:

Transparent and flexible touch-screen organic LED (OLED) displays
Researchers at Stanford University have successfully developed brand new concept of organic lighting-emitting diodes (OLEDs) with a few nanometer of graphene as transparent conductor. This paved the way for inexpensive mass production of OLEDs on large-area low-cost flexible plastic substrate, which could be rolled up like wallpaper and virtually applied to anywhere you want. Source

Anti-bacterial paper packaging
Researchers from Shanghai University said it had developed two water-based dispersible graphene derivatives can “effectively inhibit the growth of E. coli” that have minimal toxic effects on harming cells – so-called cytotoxicity. Source

Higher-capacity and faster-charging batteries
Researchers with the U.S. Department of Energy's Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) have created a graphene and tin nanoscale composite material for high-capacity energy storage in renewable lithium ion batteries. By encapsulating tin between sheets of graphene, the researchers constructed a new, lightweight "sandwich" structure that should bolster battery performance. Source

Memory devices
Hailed as the new "wonder material," graphene is being tapped by an international research team to help overcome issues associated with increasing the storage density and speed of electronic memory devices. Source

Additional sources:

The rise of graphene

Graphene: Status and Prospects

Graphene