Nobel Prizes were granted this past week, and the Physics and Chemistry Prizes each touched on nanotechnology and advanced materials. See www.nobelprize.org.
First, in awarding the Physics Prize, the Nobel committee said, "Playfulness is one of their hallmarks…" The awardees were Andre Geim and Konstantin Novoselov of the University of Manchester for their work with graphene. Graphene is the latest new "nanomaterial," following past discoveries of materials like fullerenes, carbon nanotubes, quantum dots, and other nanostructures. Graphene is a single sheet (or layer) of carbon atoms which, surprisingly, can be stable and isolated as a single sheet without merging into larger structures. Unusual properties for this material appear to abound, and commercialization prospects have just started. In a quick search of US patent literature, we could not determine any published patent filings from Geim or Novoselov on their graphene work. Clearly, however, one can detect rapidly increasing appearances for "graphene" in the patent literature.