An intense opening day at Graphene Week was followed by two days that revealed the full potential of graphene, both for applications and for new science. Graphenea participation is still very immersive, in line with the company’s pivotal role in the Graphene Flagship.

Both days’ morning plenary sessions highlighted fascinating new developments, revealing that new applications of graphene will keep emerging through scientific breakthroughs, and also illustrating that progress of work towards integrating graphene in industrial developments is clearly on the right track. Strong correlations, phase transitions, spin manipulation and other exotic-sounding physics effects were shown to have potential real-world applications in quantum (and classical) computing, sensing, and hardware memory. The progress of graphene for flexible electronics, selective gas permeation, and automotive use is also fascinating. Recordings of some of the plenary talks are available on the Graphene Flagship Youtube channel.

After lunch, which showcases the full palate of Basque culinary art, there were fringe sessions on success stories of Flagship partnering projects and publishing graphene research. It’s good to see new partners aligning with the Flagship goals and an increasing number of scientific journals that cover graphene. These are good news for the community, as it is obvious that graphene is here to stay as it integrates across a diverse portfolio of industries.

The workshop on graphene for human space exploration ended on Tuesday and was followed by a session on women in graphene. Graphenea’s Alba Centeno participated with a talk on switching career from academia to industry, a very relevant topic in today’s knowledge-based economy. The graphene innovation forum focused on standardization and commercialization. Graphenea is very keen on both these topics, as we envisage standardization of graphene materials as the only path to applying graphene on an industrial scale. Our Alba Centeno and Iñigo Charola gave talks at the commercialization session on topics of graphene wafer scale integration and high-quality CVD graphene FETs. Aside from the talks, our work was featured on many posters and highlighted in talks given by our collaborators and customers.

Photo: Jesus de la Fuente and Amaia Zurutuza greet visitors on a tour of Graphenea.

We also hosted two groups of visitors that toured nanoGune and Graphenea as part of the conference social program. The visitors had the chance to meet our management team at our headquarters, where they could see up close the research and fabrication facilities for both our product lines: CVD graphene and graphene oxide.

Photo: Iñigo Charola displays wafer-scale CVD graphene to visitors.

Finally, Graphenea made this conference special by giving away dinner for two at a restaurant that has three Michelin stars. Graphene Week participants had a chance to fill out an online ballot during the first two days of the conference and on Wednesday morning we drew the name of the lucky recipient. The winner is Florian Ludwig of Goethe University Frankfurt! We hope you enjoy your experience at Arzak!

Photo: Lucky winner selected for dinner at three-Michelin-starred restaurant.

Still one and a half days to go at this event-packed conference!