The Cambridge spin-out begins to produce graphene on a commercial scale

Paragraf, a recent spin-off from the University of Cambridge, has started producing graphene (a thick carbon layer with a maximum atomic layer) of up to eight diameters in diameter. inches, large enough for commercial electronic devices.

Paragraf manufactures graphene-based and graphene-based electronic devices that could be used in transistors, where graphene-based chips could provide speeds more than ten times faster than silicon chips; and in chemical and electrical sensors, where graphene could increase sensitivity by a factor greater than 30. The company's first device will be available in the coming months.

The remarkable properties of graphene – more resistant than steel, more conductive than copper, highly flexible and transparent – make it ideal for a range of applications. However, its widespread commercial application in electronic devices has been hampered by the difficulties associated with its production with high quality and volume. The conventional way of manufacturing large area graphene involves the use of copper as a catalyst which contaminates it, thus rendering it unsuitable for electronic applications.

Professor Sir Colin Humphreys of the Center for Materials Science and Metallurgy of the Cambridge Department of Gallium Nitride Department, as well as his former postdoctoral researchers, MM. Simon Thomas and Ivor Guiney, have developed a new method of manufacturing graphene big box in 2015.

Using their method, researchers were able to form high quality graphene slices up to eight inches in diameter, beating not only other academic research groups around the world, but also companies like IBM, Intel and Samsung.

The three researchers merged Paragraf in early 2018. Thomas is currently the CEO of the company and Guiney is its technology director, while Humphreys, who recently moved to Queen Mary University in London, is the president. .

Paragraf received funding of £ 2.9 million to support the development of its first commercial products and moved into its premises in February 2018. The financing round was led by Cambridge Enterprise, the marketing arm of the company. 39; university. Paragraf already employs 16 people and has filed eight patents.

"Paragraf has the potential to transform a wide range of industries, including electronics, energy and healthcare," said Humphreys. "This will commercially exploit the brilliant basic scientific results obtained by laboratories around the world using small graphene particles in graphene-based devices and realize the potential and benefits to the graphene society, a miracle material. "

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