Graphene, Meet Mainstream — NOVA Next | PBS
If the revolution comes, it will have started with Scotch tape, pencil lead, and cosmetic powder.
Physicists first produced graphene—a one-atom-thick sheet of carbon atoms— from humble graphite in 2004. It was the sort of accidental discovery that scientific legends are built on: Andrei Geim and Kostya Novoselov stuck plain old Scotch tape onto chunks of graphite, a substance found in pencil lead, and peeled it off. Voila, graphene. And for Geim and Noveselov, a Nobel prize.
