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Phoenix666 writes:

Researchers in Taiwan have developed a solution-based process for producing graphene that is tuned to exhibit specific electrical and mechanical properties. While solution-based exfoliation of graphene has been possible for some time, this new approach uses pulses of an electrical voltage rather than a constant voltage to produce the desired effects.

The researchers believe that their work, which was reported in the journal Nanotechnology, could pave the way for new applications for graphene in drug delivery or electronics.
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The trick to getting exactly the right defects in the graphene depended not only on using a pulsed voltage, but also being able to carefully monitor how the graphene was changing in the solvent process. To monitor this change, the researchers found that they could simply observe the transparency of the solution.
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As part of their work, the researchers tested the quality of the graphene produced via their method as a transparent conductor (the application for which graphene is being considered as a potential replacement for indium tin oxide). The resistance[sic] of their graphene films (at 50 percent transparency) was 30 times that of other graphene-based transparent conductors.

An abstract and full article (pdf) are available.

With the holy grail of graphene's amazing properties, this chapter of materials sciences is... riveting.

Original Submission