梦想照进现实：石墨烯商业前景狂想曲

    在科技界，每一个新产品或服务刚问世的时候，都让人觉得似乎是一种可能改变世界的创新。但是，石墨烯（一种碳原子构成的单层片状结构的新材料）或许真的能够改变世界。

    加州大学河滨分校（University of California at Riverside）物理学教授珍妮•刘告诉《财富》杂志（Fortune）：“石墨烯是一种神奇的材料，它的导热性比铜好10倍，导电性比硅好100倍。而且，它像塑料一样透明，质量也非常轻、非常结实，同时又具有良好的弹性和韧性。过去十年里，这种材料让整个科技界为之神魂颠倒，而且它已经成了最有希望取代硅的半导体材料。”

    珍妮•刘介绍称，石墨烯现在已经开始在一些领域投入应用。比如她指出：“石墨烯同时具有导电和透明两个特性，由于在自然界中这两种特性很难同时出现在同一种材料上，因此它具有巨大的应用前景，比如用作监视器、显示屏、太阳能电池和触摸屏的透明电极等。三星（Samsung）这些在这个领域进行了大量投入的企业已经注册了一批专利，还生产了原型产品，并且有望在几年内就能将有关产品投入市场。”

    珍妮•刘还指出，可穿戴电子产品、航空部件、宽频光电探测器、防幅射服、传感器和能量存储等也都是石墨烯众多热门研究领域中的一部分。

    在许多研究人员和投资者看来，石墨烯的终极应用是用来生产晶体管，也就是构成当代电子设备的基本部件。但是要达到这种程度的应用可能还需要一些时间。

石墨之子

    石墨烯最初是2004年在实验室里研制出来的，它本质上是一层碳原子构成的单层片状结构的材料。由于它的厚度极其的薄，我们甚至可以把它当成是一种二维材料。

    曼彻斯特大学（the University of Manchester）纳米材料学讲师亚拉文•维加亚拉哈万指出：“一般我们把低于10层的石墨烯称作石墨烯，超出这个厚度的就是石墨了。”

    “石墨烯”这个词本身是也是个涵盖性的术语。Graphene Frontiers公司CEO迈克尔•帕特森指出：“简单地说，石墨烯可以分成两大类。”一类叫做“纳米片石墨烯”，也就是用石墨制成的粉末状或屑状物。这种材料问世已经有一段时间了，而且“也并不是什么超级新潮的东西。”帕特森介绍说：“要想让它变得具有导电性，就得把它们与高分子聚合物或油墨、橡胶等物质混合。”屑状的石墨烯已经逐渐成为一种商品了。

    石墨烯的另一种类型，也就是呈薄膜状的石墨烯，才是这种材料最大的前景所在。帕特森表示，石墨烯薄膜“在电子工业有着惊人的应用前景。”同时他表示，从近期来看，石墨烯可能将主要应用于对数量要求“不太大”、同时对质量和导热性要求不是特别高的领域，比如用于基本的触摸屏等应用领域。最早应用石墨烯的此类产品可能在接下来的6到12个月内就会面世。

    如果我们把眼光放得再远一些，石墨烯可以用作海水淡化的微孔滤膜。洛克希德马丁公司（Lockheed-Martin）已经有了一款名叫Perforene的专利产品。“它是真的，而且它也很有效，但是它在经济上仍然不是很实惠，除非等到石墨烯达到工业量产级别，也就是等到每平方英寸石墨烯的价格以分计算”，而不是现在这样动辄每平方英寸几美元甚至几十美元，帕特森解释说。“那就是我们现在努力的方向。”

价格高，产量低

    但是要想把石墨烯用在号称“科技界的圣杯”的半导体领域，可能还需要整整十年的努力。

    Fenwick&West公司知识产权法律集团专利合伙人保罗•史密斯对《财富》表示：“石墨烯面临的很多挑战与大多数新材料没什么区别。首先要解决的问题是怎样合成超过实验室级别的石墨烯，其次是保持这种材料的期望特性，第三是把它整合到一款具体的产品或者技术中。”

    In the technology industry, every new product or service seems to come with the promise that it is an innovation with the potential to change the world. Graphene, a form of carbon, might actually do just that.

    "Graphene is a wonderful material," Jeanie Lau, a professor of physics at the University of California at Riverside, told Fortune. "It conducts heat 10 times better than copper and electricity 100 times better than silicon, is transparent like plastic, extremely lightweight, extremely strong, yet flexible and elastic. In the past decade, it has taken the scientific and technology communities by storm, and has become the most promising electronic material to supplement or replace silicon."

    Graphene has already found its way into a number of compelling applications, Lau said. For instance, "since it is both transparent and electrically conductive -- two attributes rarely found in the same material in nature -- it has tremendous potential as the transparent electrode in monitors, displays, solar cells, and touch screens," she explained. "Companies such as Samsung that invest heavily in this area have already secured patents, produced prototypes, and are expected to bring products to market in a few years."

    Wearable electronic devices, aviation components, broadband photodetectors, radiation-resistant coatings, sensors, and energy storage are among numerous other areas of active research, Lau said.

    For many researchers and investors, the ultimate application is graphene-based transistors, the building blocks of modern electronics. But getting there may take some time.

A child of graphite

    First produced in a lab back in 2004, graphene is essentially a single layer of pure carbon atoms bonded together in a honeycomb lattice so thin it's actually considered two-dimensional.

    "We generally regard anything less than 10 layers of graphene as graphene; otherwise, it's graphite," said Aravind Vijayaraghavan, a lecturer in nanomaterials at the University of Manchester.

    Even "graphene" is a bit of an umbrella term. "To oversimplify, there are two major types of graphene," Michael Patterson, CEO of Graphene Frontiers, said. The first: "Nanoplatelets," which are powders or flakes made from graphite. These have been around for a while and are "not really super-sexy," Patterson said. "You mix them into polymers or inks or rubbers to make them conductive." In flake form, graphene is already on its way to becoming a commodity, Patterson added.

    The other type -- in sheet or film form -- is where graphene's biggest promise lies. Graphene sheets have "incredible potential for electronics," Patterson said. In the near term, that potential may manifest in situations where the quantity requirements are "not that great" and where quality or conductivity doesn't have to be as high, such as in basic touch-screen applications, he said. Products that use graphene in this way could arrive to market in the next six to 12 months.

    Looking a little further out, graphene can be employed in membranes used for water desalination. Lockheed-Martin already has a patented product known as Perforene. "It's real and it works, but it won't be economically viable until the product reaches an industrial scale where the cost is measured in pennies per square inch" rather than dollars or tens of dollars per square inch, Patterson explained. "That's where we're working today."

'It's expensive and low-capacity'

    But use of graphene in semiconductors -- the technology's Holy Grail -- is likely a decade away.

    "Many of the challenges presented by graphene are common to most new materials," Paul Smith, a patent associate with the Intellectual Property Law Group at Fenwick & West, told Fortune. "The trick is figuring out how to synthesize graphene in a way that first is manufacturable beyond lab scale; second, preserves the desirable properties of the material; and third, can be integrated into a product or technology."