The Graphene Flagship Annual Report 2018 is now available for download. Increasing technology readiness levels (TRL), and material quality and consistency remain the key pillars of advancing towards commercialization. As stated by the Flagship Director himself, reproducibility and manufacturability are becoming increasingly important as the technology matures and shifts from labs to the society.

The Flagship is a massive project organized in 16 Work Packages grouped in 6 Divisions. The overarching themes are mapped onto the names of the divisions: enabling science and materials, health, medicine and sensors, electronics and photonics integration, and energy, composites and production.

Image: Wafer-scale system integration of graphene with silicon-based electronics is crucial to enabling a wide range of applications. Credit: Alexandra Csuport.

Although, given the scale of the project, advances are many, this year the Director singled out several achievements. In particular, characterizing material quality on a wafer scale with terahertz technology is an important step towards automated roll-to-roll production. Such fast and scalable characterization processes are necessary for any attempt of integration into electronic, photonic, sensing and other devices. A second major milestone singled out this year was the production of large graphene composites for aerospace applications. Chemical vapour deposition (CVD) growth is also making advances towards higher quality and consistency.

Image: Graphene applications roadmap. Credit: Graphene Flagship.

The year ahead will see continued commercialization and applications efforts, with unceasing support for fundamental research. An experimental pilot line for graphene-based electronics, optoelectronics and sensors is also planned.

Graphenea participates in the Flagship through three Work Packages (Flexible Electronics, Wafer-Scale System Integration, and Production), and is about to join two more (Sensors and Spintronics). Our goals in the Flagship are to increase scale-up and cost efficiency through collaboration with partners that develop applied market products, but also to remain at the forefront of scientific research in graphene for optimizing our materials. Our 4”, 6” and 8” wafers of CVD graphene lead the state of the art and are used across the globe for research and device prototypes. In parallel, we are scaling up production of our graphene oxide films, powders and solutions in line with Flagship goals. We continue to offer our products and services to researchers and businesses both in the Graphene Flagship and globally.

Image: Tours of Graphenea conducted during Graphene Week 2018 (credit: arri studioa)