Graphene, nanotubes and related materials
Authors: Skákalová Viera , Krasheninnikov Arkady , Tapaszto Levente 
Published: August 2013

This proceedings issue of physica status solidi comprises selected papers from the Symposium “Graphene, nanotubes and related materials” of the E‐MRS Fall Meeting, held in Warsaw, Poland, September 17–21, 2012.

In the era of “nano”, graphene, nanotubes and other carbon nanostructures have emerged among the most important new materials. Due to their many fascinating properties, the huge interest in these materials has been maintained for the last several decades, establishing a broad scientific community, with the focus of the ongoing research shifting more and more towards the applications as the field matures. Among them, graphene research is following a particularly spectacular path, with groundbreaking results following each other at an outstanding pace. Although research on graphene started only eight years ago, a large body of breakthrough results has already been obtained, as evidenced by the 2010 Nobel Prize in Physics awarded for graphene isolation and characterization. Besides the efforts towards understanding the fundamental physics of graphene and novel phenomena unique to this two‐dimensional material, there are also intense efforts to apply graphene in electronic, optoelectronic, spintronics and sensing applications. This fast progress has been possible due to the experience collected from previous research on carbon nanotubes. Several research groups focusing on nanotubes have also included graphene among their research topics; consequently, the two research communities are interconnected in many ways. Moreover, recent isolation of single sheets of boron nitride, the structure of which is closely related to graphene, transition‐metal dichalcogenides, as well as the possibility for creating hybrid nanomaterials has resulted in a considerable interest in carbon research from the inorganic chemistry community.

The objective of this symposium was to bring together experimentalists and theorists working on carbon nanostructures to share their recent results, identify the most important unsolved problems and provide promising solutions for tailoring the properties of carbon nanostructures. This symposium covered the latest and hottest topics in the research of graphene, nanotubes and related materials. Moreover, due to the fact that all these materials have their own characteristic advantages and disadvantages (e.g., the structure of graphene can be easily tailored by lithographic techniques, but the control over the edge structure is a major challenge, naturally absent for nanotubes) the symposium provided the opportunity to directly compare these materials in different application fields.

The following topics were covered by the symposium:

– Synthesis, preparation and chemical processing techniques.

– Novel nanofabrication methods for graphene nanostructures.

– Optical adsorption, emission, and scattering.

– Microscopy and other characterization methods.

– Theoretical studies and modeling.

– Electrical and heat transport.

– Optoelectronic devices and sensors.

– Nano‐electro‐mechanical devices (NEMs).

– Strain engineering and defect engineering.

– Nanocomposites.

Based on the feedback received, the symposium was of high scientific level and technical quality, and provided a forum for the nanocarbon community to discuss new developments, concepts and ideas in this field. More than 100 participants were registered and attended the symposium.

The invited speakers were:

Jurgen Smet, Max Planck Institute for Solid State Research, Stuttgart, Germany

Adina Luican‐Mayer, Rudgers State University of New Jersey, New Jersey, USA

Traian Dumitrica, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, USA

Chanyong Hwang, Korea Research Institute of Standards and Science, Daejon, Republic of Korea

Jaceki Baranowski, Warsaw University, Warsaw, Poland

Philippe Lambin, FUNDP Namur, Namur, Belgium

Jozsef Cserti, Eötvös University, Budapest, Hungary

Miroslav Haluska, ETH Zürich, Zurich, Switzerland

Dmitri Golberg, National Institute of Materials Science, Tsukuba, Japan

Kazumoto Suenaga, National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology, Tsukuba, Japan

Florian Banhart, University of Strasbourg, Strasbourg, France

Jonathan Coleman, Trinity College, Dublin, Ireland

Irina Grigoreva, University of Manchester, Manchester, UK

Antti‐Pekka Jauho, DTU Nanotech, Lyngby, Denmark

Alan Kaiser, Victoria University of Wellington, Wellington, New Zealand

Annick Loiseau, ONERA‐CNRS Chatillon, France

Dong Su Lee, Korean Institute of Science and Technology, Seoul, Republic of Korea

We thank them and all the other participants for their contributions. (© 2013 WILEY‐VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim)