Following Symmetry Magazine we are proposing to turn into the art of cutting paper snowflakes. These are not, however, ordinary snowflakes, they feature Paul Dirac and six Dirac cones!

You will need scissors (a cutter may also help) and to print the pdf attached to this post.

Download the pdf file with the instructions and get started.

Thanks for keeping with us throughout the year. We wish you a great 2015!

The authors.

The readers interested in graphene applications may also profit from the Graphene Roadmap presented in the latest issue of Nanoscale: “Science and technology roadmap for graphene, related two-dimensional crystals, and hybrid systems” [link]

Furthermore, the research on graphene and the related materials keeps bringing more surprises. Here we mention a few of them:

Topological currents detected in graphene superlattices! In a recent article featured in Science, Gorbachev et al. report on the detection of topological currents in graphene on boron nitride. This may bring quantum Hall like physics without a magnetic field to graphene while providing a platform for valleytronics. You may also check the commentary in the same issue of Science and the journal club by Francisco Guinea.

Taylor made graphene nanoribbon heterostructures. Cai et al. report on “Atomically precise graphene nanoribbons obtained via a bottom-up approach based on the surface-assisted assembly of molecular precursors” [link]

Spin relaxation in graphene. In an article appearing in Nature Physics entitled “Pseudospin-driven spin relaxation mechanism in graphene” van Tuan et al. report on a mechanism explaining the large disagreement between experiment and theory. [link]

Graphene bilayers manifest intringuing quantum Hall effects. Articles appearing face to face in Science address interaction driven complex states in bilayer graphene. Take a look at the Perspective and the original articles by  Kou et al. and Maher et al.
Announcement: Graphene2015, March 10-13, Bilbao, Spain.

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This meeting will follow the overwhelming success of the last editions. Some numbers of the latest meeting in Toulouse are included below:

Conference web-site:
http://www.grapheneconf.com/

[1] “Electric field control of soliton motion and stacking in trilayer graphene”,
M. Yankowitz, J.l I-Jan Wang, A. Glen Birdwell, Yu-An Chen, K. Watanabe, T. Taniguchi, P. Jacquod, P. San-Jose, P. Jarillo-Herrero & B. J. LeRoy, Nature Materials (2014), doi:10.1038/nmat3965
[2] “Photoinduced doping in heterostructures of graphene and boron nitride”,
L. Ju, J. Velasco Jr, E. Huang, S. Kahn, C. Nosiglia, Hsin-Zon Tsai, W. Yang, T. Taniguchi, K. Watanabe, Y. Zhang, G. Zhang, M. Crommie, A. Zettl & F. Wang, Nature Nanotechnology 9, 348–352 (2014).
[3] “Controlling graphene plasmons with resonant metal antennas and spatial conductivity patterns”,
P. Alonso-González, A. Y. Nikitin, F. Golmar, A. Centeno, A. Pesquera, S. Vélez, J. Chen, G. Navickaite, F. Koppens, A. Zurutuza, F. Casanova, L. E. Hueso, and R. Hillenbrand, Science (2014) DOI: 10.1126/science.1253202
[4] “Commensurate–incommensurate transition in graphene on hexagonal boron nitride”,
C. R. Woods, L. Britnell, A. Eckmann, R. S. Ma, J. C. Lu, H. M. Guo, X. Lin, G. L. Yu, Y. Cao, R. V. Gorbachev, A. V. Kretinin, J. Park, L. A. Ponomarenko, M. I. Katsnelson, Yu. N. Gornostyrev, K. Watanabe, T. Taniguchi, C. Casiraghi, H-J. Gao, A. K. Geim & K. S. Novoselov, Nature Physics 10, 451–456 (2014).
[5] “Controlled growth of a line defect in graphene and implications for gate-tunable valley filtering”, 
J.-H. Chen, G. Autès, N. Alem, F. Gargiulo, A. Gautam, M. Linck, C. Kisielowski, O. V. Yazyev, S. G. Louie, A. Zettl, Phys. Rev. B 89, 121407(R) (2014).
[6] “Non-invasive transmission electron microscopy of vacancy defects in graphene produced by ion irradiation”,
Ossi Lehtinen, I-Ling Tsai, Rashid Jalil, Rahul R. Nair, Juhani Keinonen, Ute Kaiser, Irina V. Grigorieva, Nanoscale 6, 6569-6576 (2014).
[7] “Length-dependent thermal conductivity in suspended single-layer graphene”,
Xiangfan Xu, Luiz F. C. Pereira, Yu Wang, Jing Wu, Kaiwen Zhang, Xiangming Zhao, Sukang Bae, Cong Tinh Bui, Rongguo Xie, John T. L. Thong, Byung Hee Hong, Kian Ping Loh, Davide Donadio, Baowen Li & Barbaros Özyilmaz, Nature Communications 5, 3689 (2014).
[8] “Charge Transport in Polycrystalline Graphene: Challenges and Opportunities”.
Aron W. Cummings, Dinh Loc Duong, Van Luan Nguyen, Dinh Van Tuan, Jani Kotakoski, Jose Eduardo Barrios Vargas, Young Hee Lee,* and Stephan Roche, Advanced Materials 2014, DOI: 10.1002/adma.201401389

• “One-Dimensional Electrical Contact to a Two-Dimensional Material”
  L. Wang et al. Science 342, 614 (Nov. 2013).
• “Tunable symmetry breaking and helical edge transport in a graphene quantum spin Hall state” A. F. Young et al. Nature 505, 528 (Dec. 2013). See also the press release at MIT news.
• “Observation of Floquet-Bloch States on the Surface of a Topological Insulator” Y. H. Wang et al. Science 342, 6157 (Nov 2013). See also the associated press release Persuading light to mix up with matter. Chapter 6 of our book also deals with issues related to this study.
• “Graphene radio frequency receiver integrated circuit” Han et al. Nature Communications 5, 3086 (Jan 2014). See also “First graphene radio broadcast is a wireless wonder”
• “Exceptional ballistic transport in epitaxial graphene nanoribbons” J. Baringhaus et al. Nature 506, 349 (Feb 2014). See also the news article “Graphene conducts electricity ten times better than expected”
• “A bulk mimic of graphene” Nature 506, 269 (Feb 2014)