“The symposium brings together engineers and scientists from around the world to discuss recent progress and future trends in the rapidly developing science and technology of epitaxial graphene,” said Walt de Heer, Regents’ Professor in Georgia Tech’s School of Physics and a pioneer in graphene-based electronics. “The symposium will cover a broad range of epitaxial graphene on silicon carbide topics, including surface science and growth, transport, optical properties, chemistry, devices and theory.  The discussions during this symposium will help to establish the future directions of epitaxial graphene science and technology.”

The symposium was first held in 2009 and is expected to be a yearly gathering. This year 130 attendees are expected. In addition to scientists from Georgia Tech, researchers from institutions such as the University of California, the National Institute of Standards and Technology,  the French National Center for Scientific Research (CNRS), the German Max Planck Institute, the Japanese NTT labs  and  several representatives from industry will be in attendance.

So far, the substance has shown great promise in being a material that can conduct electricity with little resistance without many of the problems that carbon nanotubes have exhibited, such as difficulties with placing them and building them into wires. In addition, research suggests that epitaxial graphene may offer much greater speed and performance over silicon.

Scientists at the symposium will discuss the recent results of their research and will likely plan future scientific endeavors in this field.