Structure and Properties of Graphene

Theoretically, graphene is not a new object. However, before the discovery of graphene, these was always a debate over whether carbon could exist in a two-dimensional (2D) form. In fact, it was commonly recognized that no standalone 2D crystal is stable under certain temperatures in which layers or macromolecules of such material would not be able to grow in a crystalline structure according to theoretic predictions. Therefore, it is quite strange that graphene appears frequently in our daily life but no one ever found it until 2004. More interestingly, unlike many other scientific discoveries, the first observation of graphene is highly dramatic.