192 Ideas
Science A century may have passed since Poland’s last Nobel Prize in science (for Maria Skłodowska-Curie), but the spirit of innovation lives on Polish scientists are patenting global industrial production of graphene, a miraculous material that is set revolutionise electronics over the next decade. Poland is the first country in the world to be capable of producing it on an industrial scale. Graphene means smaller, cheaper and much faster computers. Discovered in 2004, one gram of graphene can cover several football pitches. But that is not all. With better conductivity than copper it is one hundred times stronger than steel. Graphene was invented at the Institute of Materials Technology (ITME) in Warsaw. The ITME is now working on obtaining an international patent for mass production. Scientists from the ITME devised a way of transferring production of graphene from the laboratory to industrial scale using equipment that had been used for years in the manufacture of semiconductor structures. Scientists believe that in 10 years the full miniaturisation of silicon-based systems will end and graphene will replace it. It is likely that EU funds will be available to support the development of graphene, with the 10-year Flagship programme starting in 2012 and a budget of EUR 100 million.