The EU Graphene Flagship has published its graphene application roadmap, showing when the flagship expects different graphene applications to mature and enter the market.

As can be seen in the roadmap above (click here for a larger image), the first applications that are being commercialized now are applications such as composite functional coatings, graphene batteries, low-cost printable electronics (based on graphene inks), photodetectors and biosensors.

Graphene Flagship researchers produced graphene-based spintronics devices that utilize both electron charge and spin at room temperature. Demonstrating the spin’s feasibility for bridging distances of up to several micrometres, these results may open the door to new possibilities for integrating information-processing and storage in a single chip.

The Graphene Flagship program recognizes the potential of spintronics devices made from graphene-related materials. Researchers from different universities successfully showed that it is possible to manipulate graphene’s spin properties in a controlled manner at room temperature. These results inspire new directions in the development of spin-logic devices and quantum computing. With miniaturization a major driving force behind the electronics industry, graphene opens new possibilities for compacting spin-logic operations with magnetic memory elements in a single platform, notes Catalan Institution for Research and Advanced Studies (ICREA) Research Professor Stephan Roche, who has been leading the Graphene Flagships Spintronics Work Package since its inception.

Researchers at EMPA (Swiss Federal Laboratories for Materials Science and Technology), along with colleagues from the Max Planck Institute for Polymer Research in Mainz and other partners, have succeeded in precisely controlling the properties of graphene nano-ribbons (GNRs) by specifically varying their shape. This can be used to generate specific local quantum states, and could in the future be used for precise nano-transistors or possibly even quantum computing.

The team has shown that if the width of a narrow graphene nano-ribbon changes, in this case from seven to nine atoms, a special zone is created at the transition: because the electronic properties of the two areas differ in a special, topological way, a "protected" and thus very robust new quantum state is created in the transition zone. This local electronic quantum state can be used as a basic component to produce tailor-made semiconductors, metals or insulators - and perhaps even as a component in quantum computers.

A research team at the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Argonne National Laboratory has placed armchair-edge graphene nanoribbons (AGNRs) on a gold surface. Since AGNRs become semiconductors at certain widths, this structure may offer advantages in speed, heat dissipation and power consumption in electronic devices and create new research paths in spintronics.

The goal was to use AGNRs to block magnetic interactions on a metal. The team focused on how the AGNRs affect these interactions in a molecule tightly adhered to gold using the phenomenon of Kondo resonance — a well-defined, temperature-dependent effect between a single magnetic atom or molecule and a metal’s free electrons. For this purpose, the team relied on a low-temperature scanning tunneling microscopy tool at Argonne’s Center for Nanoscale Materials.

Scientists from St. Petersburg University and Tomsk University in Russia, along with teams at the Max Planck Institute in Germany and University of the Basque Country, Spain, have modified graphene in such a way that it has taken the properties of cobalt and gold: magnetism and spinorbit interaction. This advance can greatly benefit quantum computers.

The graphene was (for the first time, according to the researchers) modified to adopt such fundamental properties as magnetism and spin-orbit interaction. The spin of an electron is a magnet induced by the spin of the electron around its axis. It also orbits the nucleus to produce electric current and therefore a magnetic field. The interaction between the magnet and magnetic field is a spin-orbit interaction. Unlike in gold, the spin-orbit interaction in graphene is extremely small. The interaction between graphene and gold increase spin-orbit interaction in graphene, while interaction between graphene and cobalt induces magnetism, the team explained.

A collaboration between Spanish research institutes—led by the nanoGUNE Cooperative Research Center (CIC)—has achieved a breakthrough in so-called molecular electronics by devising a way to connect magnetic porphyrin molecules to graphene nanoribbons. These connections may be an example of how graphene could enable the potential of molecular electronics.

Porphyrin is an important molecule that is responsible for making photosynthesis possible in plants and transporting oxygen in the blood. Recently, researchers have been experimenting with "magnetic porphyrins" and discovered that they can form the basis of spintronic devices. Spintronics involves manipulating the spin of electrons and it is this spin that is responsible for magnetism: When a majority of electrons in a material have their spins pointing in the same direction, the material is magnetized. If you can move all the spins up or down and can read that direction, you can create the foundation of the 0 and 1 of digital logic.

Researchers from The City University of New York (CUNY) describe a process for creating diamene: flexible, layered sheets of graphene that temporarily become harder than diamond and impenetrable upon impact. The material is fascinating as it is as flexible and lightweight as foil but becomes stiff and hard enough to stop a bullet on impact. Such a material may be beneficial for applications like wear-resistant protective coatings and ultra-light bullet-proof films.

Photo by Red Orbit

The team worked to theorize and test how two layers of graphene could be made to turn into a diamond-like material upon impact at room temperature. The team also found the moment of conversion resulted in a sudden reduction of electric current, suggesting diamene could have interesting electronic and spintronic properties.

Researchers from Spain's ICN2 institute have discovered that graphene/TMDC heterostructures can exhibit etremely long spin relaxation lifetime. These structure feature lifetimes that are orders of magnitude larger than anything observed in 2D materials - and in fact these results point to a qualitatively new regime of spin relaxation.

Spin relaxation lifetime means that time it takes for the spin of electrons in a spin current to lose their spin (return to the natural random disordered state). A long lifetime is very important for spintronics devices. This new study reveals that the rate at which spins relax in graphene/TMDC systems depends strongly on whether they are pointing in or out of the graphene plane, with out-of-plane spins lasting tens or hundreds of times longer than in-plane spins.

Teams from the University of York and Roma Tre University state showed that ultra-low-power transistors could be built using composite materials based on single layers of graphene and transition metal dichalcogenides (TMDC). These materials, they note, could be used to achieve a sought-after electrical control over electron spin.

The teams explained we found this can be achieved with little effort when 2D graphene is paired with certain semiconducting layered materials. Our calculations show that the application of small voltages across the graphene layer induces a net polarization of conduction spins". The team showed that when a small current is passed through the graphene layer, the electrons’ spin polarize in plane due to ‘spin-orbital’ forces brought about by the proximity to the TMDC base. They also showed the efficiency of charge-to-spin conversion can be quite high, even at room temperature.

Researchers from the University of Groningen developed a device made by 2D sheets of graphene and Boron-Nitride that showed unprecedented spin transport efficiency at room temperature.

The research, funded by the European Union's $1 billion Graphene Flagship, uses the single-layer graphene as the core material. The researchers say that graphene is a great material for spin transport - but the spin in the graphene cannot be manipulated. To overcome this in the device, the graphene is sandwiched between two layers of boron nitride and the whole structure rests on silicon.