I would say there are three important things about graphene. It's two-dimensional, which is the best possible number for studying fundamental physics. The second thing is the quality of graphene, which stems from its extremely strong carbon-carbon bonds. And finally, the system is also metallic.
Carbon has this genius of making a chemically stable, two-dimensional, one-atom-thick membrane in a three-dimensional world. And that, I believe, is going to be very important in the future of chemistry and technology in general.
What is important about graphene is the new physics it has delivered.
Graphene is dead; long live graphene.
I was very much taken with carbon fibers because they seemed like the perfect medium to explore transport studies in carbon-based systems.
The concept of graphene came along in 1947, but nobody paid much attention to it. I was fascinated because it had a linear E versus K while everything else that people were working on at that time had a quadratic dispersion relationship. I wondered why this was and what was so special about it. That was my fascination.
A carbon nanotube is just a graphene sheet that's rolled up seamlessly, and this happens in nature; carbon nanotubes are found in mineral deposits around the planet.
Graphene is a single plane of graphite that has to be pulled out of bulk graphite to show its amazing properties.
