Graphene and Graphene-Based Nanocomposites

The study of graphene is one of the most exciting topics in materials science and condensed matter physics (Geim and Novoselov, 2007) and graphene has good prospects for applications in a number of different fields (Novoselov, 2011; Geim, 2011). There has been a rapid rise of interest in the study of the structure and properties of graphene following the first report in 2004 of the preparation and isolation of single graphene layers in Manchester (Novoselov et al, 2004). It had previously been thought that the isolation of single-layer graphene would not be possible since such 2D crystals would be unstable thermodynamically and/or might roll up into scrolls if prepared as single atomic layers (Young et al, 2012). A large number of studies since 2004 have shown that this is certainly not the case. There was excitement about graphene initially because of its electronic properties, with its charge carriers exhibiting very high intrinsic mobility, having zero effective mass and being able to travel distances of microns at room temperature without being scattered (Geim and Novoselov, 2007). Thus the majority of the original research upon graphene had concentrated upon electronic properties, aimed at applications such as using graphene in electronic devices (Avouris, 2010).