The team used surface oxygen to grow centimeter-size single graphene crystals on copper. The crystals were about 10,000 times as large as the largest crystals from only four years ago. Very large single crystals have exceptional electrical properties.
"In the long run it might be possible to achieve meter-length single crystals," Ruoff said. "This has been possible with other materials, such as silicon and quartz. Even a centimeter crystal size—if the grain boundaries are not too defective—is extremely significant."
"We can start to think of this material's potential use in airplanes and in other structural applications—if it proves to be exceptionally strong at length scales like parts of an airplane wing, and so on," he said.
