Is the U.S. Lagging Behind the Rest of the World in Graphene Research?

Historically, America has seen herself as a pioneer in many important areas of research and technology development. In fact, much of the rest of the world sees the U.S. in this way as well. Regarding breakthroughs and discoveries in fields as diverse as space research, medicine, electronics, software, artificial intelligence, internet proliferation, next gen education and many other important areas, the U.S. is a place to look for leadership in both strategic direction and specific achievements that are meant to advance mankind. There is one key area today however where the U.S. is significantly behind many other developed nations in elemental research and knowledge base foundation; the advanced material graphene.

Not a few current thought leaders in graphene today are pulsing Europe, Korea and even China, for what is happening on the horizon regarding this key material. Experts will tell you that today the deep graphene research patent leadership is Korean; the broadest range of work in graphene application development is in Europe; and much of the best thinking in graphene manufacturing infrastructure, where development meets implementation, can be found in China. How has this happened? Why isn’t the U.S. mentioned as one of the top tier centers of excellence in graphene? Let’s look at some recent developments.

In 2013, the EU set aside one billion euros and funded the biggest single targeted research project in its history; ‘The Graphene Flagship’. According to Wikipedia, The Graphene Flagship, “…represents a new form of joint, coordinated research initiative on an unprecedented scale.^[1] Through a combined academic-industrial consortium, the research effort covers the entire value chain, from materials production to components and system integration, and targets a number of specific goals that exploit the unique properties of graphene”. Is there any kind of focused, funded graphene effort like this in the U.S.? Nope. Ok, a strategy at least? Some unified direction based on a consensus? Don’t look here. Doesn’t exist.

As for disparate, individual industrial graphene activity in the U.S., there are a few domestic graphene composite producers as well as some graphene oxide providers. How about for high quality, single layer, so called ‘bottom up’ graphene film? There are only two commercial producers in the U.S. for mono-layer, CVD graphene sheets and only one of those does this exclusively. So it’s pretty clear that Europe, Korea and China are way ahead of the U.S. in high quality graphene – perhaps even a decade or more. This isn’t to say that there aren’t a few large, U.S. multinational conglomerates that have their own in-house ‘skunk works’ graphene laboratory capability. Many do. But so far, they aren’t talking about what they have let alone sharing advances or trying to form a consensus of direction or strategy toward standards or anything else.

However, there are some in the U.S. graphene community that are trying to do something about this gap. On March 15, 2017, Rice Professor, Jim Tour, who is a nationally recognized expert in the field of graphene, testified before the House Committee on Energy and Commerce about how far behind the U.S. is in graphene research. The following link goes to an article that describes the nature of this gap and even talks about a graphene ‘brain drain’ regarding the best and brightest in the country just going to where the most interested parties are paying the most – overseas.

https://news.rice.edu/2017/03/16/tour-testifies-on-capitol-hill-about-graphene-space-race/

To be fair, government grants are being awarded here in the U.S. for graphene research. The DOD, National Science Foundation and the Department of Energy are all funding graphene grants. But the effort has no structure, coordination or cohesive strategy. As with many U.S. style efforts, mindlessly throwing money at a gap or problem seems to be what passes for a strategy today. Additionally, as I write, there are no standards in the field of graphene to guide progress. Just what is ‘graphene’ anyway? How pure does it have to be to be called ‘graphene’? How many layers can a graphene sheet have and still be ‘graphene’? How conductive must it be? How transparent? These unsettled questions limit progress.

So, is the U.S. behind in graphene research? Without question. And today it looks like leadership and progress will have to come from private industry. But that’s not necessarily a deal killer. As an example of success, the U.S. semiconductor industry largely succeeded without any ‘Manhattan Project’ type efforts from government or even anything like The Graphene Flagship. Semiconductor companies and executives very early on knew that at a high level they were a much more powerful force when they worked together on standards and direction. So they collaborated from the start regarding strategies on how all could and should go forward, setting up standards committees and creating a homogeneous ‘gathered’ landscape for the creative destruction that must take place for rapid technological advances. The same thing can happen with graphene in the U.S. But today there’s no question that we’re behind in this field and the pace of progress is fast. It’s time to start playing catch up in graphene.