Great Britain will invest to research graphene

The discovery of the versatile material’s properties was worth the Nobel Prize in Physics in 2010 for Russian scientists Andre Geim and Konstantin Novoselov.

The British Chancellor of the Exchequer, George Osborne, said that the sum of money would be distributed among diverse projects in various universities, among them Cambridge and Manchester.

Graphene is a flexible and renitent material enabling breakthroughs in quantum physics.

This two-dimensional material has a flat sheet structure, one atom thick, composed by carbon atoms densely compact in a crystalline network in a honeycomb shape.

It is considered useful, among other things, for the development of new and more efficient flexible electronic devices, such as computers and touch screens, as well as solar panels.

Part of the government grant, €14 million, will go to the University of Cambridge for research in electronics and optoelectronics, including the development of touch screens.

Imperial College London will receive €5.4 million to research possible applications in aerospace engineering, in collaboration with sector partners like Airbus.

Other English universities, such as Manchester and Durham, will also receive money and work in conjunction with a series of companies that will contribute another €26 million.

Osborne highlighted the United Kingdom’s interest in being a pioneer in the development of graphene, which has potential for lucrative uses, taking the material “from the British laboratory to the British factory”.