Graphite has attracted global interest due to its unique anisotropic properties, including excellent electrical and thermal conductivity. Widely used as a battery anode material and in applications such as electromagnetic shielding, catalysis, and nuclear technology, graphite remains a critical material in both industrial and research fields.
For decades, researchers have sought to produce high-quality artificial graphite with large grains and smooth, layered structures. Conventional methods typically involve high-temperature treatment of polymer films under mechanical stress. However, the resulting materials often suffer from limited grain size, lower density, and surface irregularities, with their bulk mechanical properties seldom evaluated.
Another well-known synthetic form, highly oriented pyrolytic graphite (HOPG), offers improved crystallinity, but still exhibits relatively small domain sizes.
Moreover, such materials tend to develop wrinkles and distortions during cooling, and their properties are typically studied at the microscale—using exfoliated flakes rather than intact graphite films. Thus, scientists struggled to grow large, flat graphite crystals without wrinkles—a barrier to unlocking graphite's full potential in high-tech applications.
Led by Director Rodney S. Ruoff at the Institute for Basic Science (IBS), researchers have developed a groundbreaking method to produce mirror-like graphite films with millimeter-sized grains—approximately 10,000 times larger than those found in conventional synthetic graphite. The work has been published in Nature Communications.
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