It is reported that the Finnish mobile phone giant Nokia has just received US $1.35 billion in research funding from the EU's Future and Emerging Technologies Organization (FET), which will be used for research on graphene materials. Graphene is the thinnest known material, only one atom thick, but it has a considerable hardness, 300 times harder than steel. So why does Nokia study this substance? Is it just to keep Nokia the title of the most resistant mobile phone in the plane?

Let's first understand what graphene is:

Graphene (Graphene): It is a two-dimensional material with only one carbon atom thickness, which is a hexagonal honeycomb lattice plane film composed of carbon atoms with sp2 hybrid orbits. In 2004, Andre Heim and Konstantin Novoselov, physicists at the University of Manchester, UK, successfully separated graphene from graphite in the experiment, and proved that it can exist alone. They also won the 2010 Nobel Prize in Physics for their "pioneering experiment in two-dimensional graphene materials".

At present, graphene is the thinnest and hardest nano material in the world. It is almost completely transparent, absorbing only 2.3% of the light; The thermal conductivity is up to 5300 W/m · K, which is higher than carbon nanotubes and diamonds. At room temperature, its electron mobility is more than 15000 cm2/V · s, which is also higher than carbon nanotubes or silicon crystals. The resistivity is only about 10-6 Ω· cm, which is lower than copper or silver. It is the material with the lowest resistivity in the world. Because its resistivity is extremely low and electrons run very fast, it is expected to be used to develop a new generation of electronic components or transistors with thinner and faster conductivity. (Via Wikipedia)

Where will Nokia apply graphene? We found a PDF file of graphene application in mobile phones prepared by Nokia Research Center, from which we can see Nokia's vision for this new material (all pictures can be clicked to open the large picture):

• Improve the performance of existing mobile phones and reduce costs, for example, replace the LCD Transparent widely used in touch panel ITO (indium tin oxide) conductive layer, and used in other high-frequency electronic components;
• In the design of future concept mobile phones (such as flexible mobile phones that Nokia has been developing), Nokia also considers the application of graphene to circuit boards, flexible materials and integrated multi-point sensing platforms;

As can be seen from the flexible product concept diagram below, Nokia is interested in the flexibility, extensibility and deformability of graphene, that is, Nokia does not study graphene materials to make its mobile phone harder, but to make its mobile phone softer!

Since graphene is essentially a transparent and good conductor, it is also suitable for manufacturing transparent touch screens, light plates, supercapacitors and even Transparent battery The electrode material in. It can also be seen from Nokia's files:

[caption id="attachment_14670" align="aligncenter" width="1197"] Characteristic curve of graphene electrode battery [/caption]

Or it can be used to make a thinner touch screen. It can be seen from the figure that this touch screen consists of a layer of 50 nm thick DLC anti hanging material, a layer of 700 nm thick polyethylene coating, a layer of 200 nm thick graphene conductive layer, and a layer of 200 μ m thick PET material. The thickness of the entire touch screen is only 0.2 mm. In addition, Nokia plans to use graphene to develop tactile feedback devices. For example, when a silk picture is displayed on the screen of your mobile phone, you will feel smooth when you touch the screen. Isn't it amazing?

Full file download:

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