Latest health warnings over the world's thinnest material haven't abated the continued buzz about this wonder material. Manchester, the home of graphene; today saw 40 global companies in talks with Manchester University to discuss setting up a graphene hub in the heart of the town. The idea behind the graphene hub will be to exploit this material and its derivatives, looking for new commercial opportunities and inventions that are bound to change the way we live.
In this month's issue of Materials Today you'll find articles from lead authors Dresselhaus, Avouris, Wöll, and Pasricha covering defects and impurities in graphene materials, eco synthesis and applications in electronics and photonics, and epitaxially grown metal-organic frameworks, we hope you enjoy the issue.
We have another busy month in March, do take the time to visit our virtual conference entitled the Frontiers of Microscopy, taking place live on March 21st 2012 and then available on demand for an indefinite period thereafter. Thank you to our speakers, whose support and encouragement has made this event possible. In no particular order, Professor Yanfa Yan, Professor Nigel Browning, Professor Bruce Hinds, Professor Ji-Xin Cheng, Dr Wu Zhou, Dr Nic Mullin, and Dr Baptiste Gault. I'd also like to thank our sponsors who too have supported us throughout and again without whom this event would not be possible. You will be able to listen to groundbreaking presentations, from our speakers and sponsors, with lots of valuable material to download and use offline.
For the first time during this event we have opened our doors to a unique virtual poster session which I hope you will find interesting and useful. Like physical poster sessions at conferences, I envisage our poster session giving you an opportunity to network and communicate with colleagues conducting overlapping or complimentary research from around the world.
Let us know what you think – throughout the live event you will be able to post questions to speakers and representatives from our sponsors. Added to this, post event if you have any comments or questions you would like to raise with any of the speakers send an email to materialstoday@elsevier.com and we will forward it on for you.
And finally, if you haven't already, do remember to download our free iPad app in the iTunes store. It gives you all our content you can find in the magazine conveniently housed in an app that we are sure you will love. From up to the minute news items to a digital version of the magazine; you'll be able to keep up with all the latest news and events in materials science at your own convenience.
Until next month, enjoy your Materials Today.