Graphene: Making a wonder material more wonderful

Graphene is a form of the chemical element carbon. Well-known forms of carbon include the world's hardest material, diamond, and the soft black material known as the "lead" in a pencil, which is graphite. Graphite can be visualized as layers of carbon atoms stacked together in sheets with each sheet resembling a hexagonally woven chicken wire fence or a very thin honeycomb. Graphene is to all intents and purposes a single sheet from one of those stacks. It is thus one of the thinnest materials known, an atomic monolayer of carbon atoms.