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Graphene, it can be bent and shaped in any way required. It’s tough but light, just 1 atom thick but visible to naked eye, 200 times stronger than steel yet more flexible, fire resistant but superconductor of heat. Though this magic material in hype is nothing more than what we make while drawing with a pencil as it’s a highly thin lattice of carbon which is recently being manufactured for various hi-end technologies. Its ability to combine apparently incompatible properties is somewhat magical though.

For wearables to live up to their name we can’t go on with heavy, less flexible technology, which we have to wear, because it serves an important purpose. It’s necessary that we make these devices slender enough to look and feel good without compromising on their usefulness, a big challenge for the wearable designers and manufacturers. If a component can be made small enough without sacrificing on power or stamina, it’s good enough.

Whatever next-generation electronic devices we have been watching in sci-fi flicks based on some distant future plot can be potentially realized through graphene. Cheap, flexible, wireless graphene communication like bendable phones and healthcare devices can be directly printed into clothing and even skin (demonstrated by University of Manchester academics), given we resolve whatever manufacturing issues that exist in order to make them happen in grand scale. There also lies the possibility of faster transistors and more efficient semiconductors.

Cited ahead are some potential uses and development of graphene-based technologies: Graphene can be used to improve touchscreen sensitivity of phones and tablets, and with its mechanical and electrical properties it can make happen a smartphone that we can wear on our wrist.

Being a no gap conductor they can also prove to be an asset in making miniature computer circuitry, basically in the field of semiconductors, graphene, with its 1 atom thickness and current conduction at room temperature, can replace the silicon-based semiconductors. Same has also been supported by research.

Gold doped graphene is also used in health monitoring devices as they enhance the devices detecting capabilities being electromechanically active and soft functional materials.

For the same reasons graphene woven fabrics (GWF) are being explored for highly sensitive sensing. Due to their unique features of high sensitivity and reversible extensibility, the GWFs based piezoresistance sensors have wide potential applications in the fields of displays, robotics, body monitoring and so on.

Even after having such promising attributes, manufacturing flawless graphene sheets and weaving them is yet a challenge to overcome.

Which we may hope to have overcome as an international team of scientists with Prof. Monica Cracium from the University of Exeter, have pioneered a new technique to embed transparent, flexible graphene electrodes into fibres commonly associated with the textile industry.

This discovery may be a big breakthrough in wearable electronics as manufacturing issues has for some time been hindering in realizing the full potential of graphene as most its electrical and mechanical properties are reduced or lost with current manufacturing techniques.

Now with the successful implementation of this discovery, lightweight, durable, and easily transportable wearable electronic devices shall be a reality soon.

The facts and research excerpts provided above leaves lesser doubt about the new path that graphene can lead us to, given we overcome the manufacturing challenges and solutions found for the same is implemented on an industrial scale creating graphene with all its properties intact. This once achieved, research in a wide range of sectors from defense to health care shall benefit from it.