In the last two years graphene caused a lot of excitement among scientists. The strong and thin carbon material discovered in 2004 by Nobel Prize winning scientists Professor Andre Geim and Professor Kostya Novoselov at The University of Manchester, seems indeed to perfectly combine mechanical, electrical and thermal conductivity.
The world’s thinnest material, graphene has inspired scientists to focus their researches on touch-screens, ultrafast transistors and photodetectors that may revolutionise the world of electronics.
Graphene has the potential to replace silicon in high-speed computer processors and other devices and, more recently, a group of scientists at Iowa State University, discovered other properties of graphene and the possibility of using it for broadband optical amplifiers or high-speed modulators for telecommunications.
Further experiments also led to the discovery of more advanced materials, such as GraphExeter, a transparent, lightweight and flexible material, recently developed at the University of Exeter, where a team of researchers is now trying to develop a spray-on version of the same material to apply on fabrics and other surfaces.
Researchers at Technical University in Germany and Aix-Marseille University in France created instead silicene, a new material with similar electronic properties to graphene that ought to be more compatible with silicon-based electronic devices.
Materials similar to graphene/GraphExeter/silicene alrady appeared in sci-fi novels and films such as The Men Who Fell To Earth (on today in selected cinemas across the UK). In one scene from Nicholas Roeg’s film, Newton’s wife uses as television a foldable see-through screen very similar to the ones seen in the first videos uploaded on the Internet and showing the possibilities of graphene.
Fashion has been really slow at jumping on the graphene bandwagon: so far we have seen the honeycomb-shaped structure of this two-dimensional material reappearing in some of the current menswear knits.
On Sunday at the Pringle os Scotland’s show during the "London Collections: Men" event, some of the tops designed by Alistair Carr seemed to replicate the monolayer of carbon atoms arranged in a hexagonal lattice that forms graphene. Yet there haven’t really been any pioneering and groundbreaking applications in fashion that have led designers to the creation of smart, useful and stylish garments.
Transparent, lightweight and flexible materials could indeed easily revolutionise wearable electronic devices and fashion.
While developing such designs may be pretty expensive at research level, starting to come up with prototypes and ideas would be much more exciting than keeping on launching fashion weeks from one corner of the globe to the other. After all, the excitement, glam and glitz of a fashion week/trade fair dies when they're over, while a research is something that remains and even paves the way for a brighter future.
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