Three letters beamed across a lab bench may spark a revolution in wireless communication. The seemingly simple transmission of "IBM" was received by the first working radio chip to be made from the modern wonder material, graphene – sheets of carbon, each just one atom thick.
Graphene, with its flat, hexagonal lattice, was first isolated a decade ago. It won its discoverers a Nobel prize in physics, in part because its high electrical and thermal conductivity led to broad predictions that it would completely replace silicon transistors, the key component in many electronics. This latest achievement shows that analogue circuits such as radios can indeed make use of the material, potentially leading to cheaper, more efficient wireless devices.
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