Get your freshly baked graphene in Delft

A little over a decade ago, in a bar in Leiden, the seed of a new company was sown. Over a couple of beers, two Leiden University scientists told a British semiconductor industry veteran about the work they’d been doing in the lab. Studying the growth process of graphene using scanning tunneling microscopy, the researchers had uncovered mechanistic details that allowed them to grow large chunks of high-quality graphene. Agreeing that the 2D semiconductor harbored a lot of potential as well as hitting it off on a personal level, the trio soon afterward decided to start a company and make large quantities of the material.

That was a rather bold move. At the time, scientists were still teasing out the unique electronic properties of the honeycombed network of carbon atoms, providing clues for future applications but no more than that. What little graphene was needed, researchers could make themselves by peeling off graphite layers with adhesive tape – just as its discoverers had done years earlier. And here, three men were thinking about commercially manufacturing the material.