Credit: ACS Nano (2026). DOI: 10.1021/acsnano.5c12759
Topics: Applied Physics, Battery, Chemistry, Graphene, History, Materials Science, Nanomaterials
What do Thomas Edison and 2010 Nobel Prize in physics winners Konstantin Novoselov and Andre Geim have in common? According to a recent publication from the lab of Rice University's James Tour in ACS Nano, it could be graphene—an answer that might have confused Edison, who died almost 20 years before physicist P.R. Wallace proposed such a substance could exist, and nearly 80 years before Novoselov and Geim were awarded a Nobel Prize for isolating and characterizing it.
Graphene is a transparent, remarkably strong substance, as thin as a single atom, and useful in several modern applications, like semiconductors. One type of graphene, called turbostratic graphene, can be produced by applying a voltage across a resistant carbon-based material and rapidly heating it to 2,000–3,000 degrees Celsius.
In modern terms, that method is called flash Joule heating. But in 1879, Edison's method was simply turning on one of his newly patented, stable light bulbs. Unlike modern incandescent light bulbs that rely on tungsten filaments, early versions often used resistive carbon-based filaments, such as Japanese bamboo. Flipping a switch applied a voltage that rapidly heated the filaments, producing light. Or, perhaps, graphene. It depends on the century.
Edison's 1879 bulb experiments may have unintentionally produced graphene, Rachel Leeson, edited by Andrew Zinin, Phys.org
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