Unique properties of 2-D materials and metals grown on carbon-coated surfaces

Two-dimensional materials are a bit of a mind-bending concept. Humans live in a three-dimensional world, after all, where everything observed in our natural world has height, width, and depth. And yet when graphene—a carbon material unique in its truly flat, one-atom-deep dimension—was first produced in 2004, the mind-bending concept became reality and an unexplored frontier in materials science.