About

• Graphene is a single-atom-thick layer of carbon atoms bonded in a honeycomb pattern 
• It is an allotrope of carbon consisting of a single layer of atoms arranged in a hexagonal lattice

Properties of Graphene

• Graphene is considered to be the world’s thinnest and strongest material.
• It is 200 times stronger than steel but six times lighter.
• It is the most conductive material  of both electricity and heat.
• It is transparent material
• It impermeable to gases, even those as light as hydrogen or helium

Graphene and Graphite

• Both Graphene and Graphite are composed of 100% Carbon
• 1mm of graphite contains some 3 million layers of graphene
• graphite is a three-dimensional crystalline arrangement, graphene is a two-dimensional crystal

Uses of Graphene

• Tt is a great material for making heat-spreading solutions, such as heat sinks or heat dissipation films.
• This could be useful in both microelectronics (for example to make LED lighting more efficient and longer lasting) and also in larger applications – for example thermal foils for mobile devices.
• Graphene is a   very promising material for use in batteries and supercapacitors. Graphene may enable batteries and supercapacitors (and even fuel-cells) that can store more energy – and charge faster, too.
• Graphene has a lot of promise for additional applications: anti-corrosion coatings and paints, efficient and precise sensors, faster and efficient electronics, flexible displays, efficient solar panels, faster DNA sequencing, drug delivery, and more.

Why in news

• Researchers have found that graphene displays an anomalous giant magnetoresistance (GMR) at room temperature.
• GMR is the result of the electrical resistance of a conductor being affected by magnetic fields in adjacent materials.
• The new study has found that a graphene-based device, unlike conventional counterparts, wouldn’t need to be cooled to a very low temperature to sense these fields. 
• The magnetoresistance observed in the graphene-based device was almost 100-times higher than that observed in other known semimetals in this magnetic field range.

https://www.thehindu.com/sci-tech/science/giant-magnetoresistance-graphene-room-temperature-andre-geim/article66728864.ece#:~:text=GMR-based%20devices%20are%20particularly,in%20Nature%20on%20April%2012.