Northern Graphite signed an agreement with Grafen Chemical Industries to supply +48 mesh and +32 mesh extra large flake graphite for graphene research. The two companies will also collaborate to develop intellectual property rights. Northern will retain a 50% interest in the North American patent rights to any products and processes developed by Grafen.

Grafen developed a novel fabrication method allowing it to synthesize graphene of excellent quality and with considerable yield. Its graphene production process is a highly modified implementation of the conventional graphite oxide manufacturing technique and eliminates known major drawbacks such as extreme disruption of crystal structure of precursor graphite causing low product qualities of electrical conductivity, mechanical performance etc.

Researchers from the DOE's Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) demonstrated that point defects in graphene are helpful in transferring atomic-scale data by integrating electrons with light. This could pave the way towards faster and smaller electronic devices. The team created the point defects by placing silicon atoms instead of carbon atoms. A two-atom silicon wire in graphene is capable of transforming light into an electronic signal and then converting the signal again into light.

The team says that the silicon atoms operate like atomic-scale antennae, thus improving graphene’s local surface plasmon response and forming an atomic-scale prototypical plasmonic device. The electron microscope used for the study is a component of the Shared Research Equipment User Facility of ORNL.