Forms of the graphene family

Evidence: Well-supported as materials taxonomy. A bag labeled “graphene” is not thereby a 2004 Manchester flake.

If one page on this site should survive a server migration, it is this one. Most arguments about graphene are arguments about which solid.

Pristine sheets

Monolayer graphene — one honeycomb plane of sp² carbon. The object of [[timeline/2004]] and [[timeline/1947]].
Bilayer / few-layer (FLG) — two to roughly ten planes. Electronic structure changes with layer number and stacking. Magic-angle twisted bilayer is a stacking-and-angle story ([[timeline/2018]]), not a powder grade.
Graphite — many planes, 3D crystal. Parent material ([[timeline/pre-chemistry]]).

Graphite oxide — oxidized, lamellar graphite (Brodie lineage, [[timeline/before-1900]]).
Graphene oxide (GO) — exfoliated oxidized sheets; hydrophilic; insulating compared with graphene; processable in water.
Reduced graphene oxide (rGO) — GO with oxygen stripped back. More conductive than GO, more defective than cleaved or good CVD graphene.

Nanoplatelets / GNP — stacks that may be tens of layers. Often what “tonnes of graphene” means.
CVD film — grown on metal (Cu landmark: [[timeline/2009]]), transferred. Grain boundaries and wrinkles are part of the object.
Epitaxial graphene on SiC — carbon left after Si leaves the surface. IBM 100 GHz FETs used this family ([[timeline/2010]]).
Graphene quantum dots (GQDs) — very small pieces with confined electronics and photoluminescence claims; quality varies wildly.
Foams, aerogels, fibres, yarns — assembled architectures (e.g. wet-spun GO fibres in [[weekly/2026-W38]]).
Holey / perforated graphene — engineered holes; mask or membrane, not a synonym for GO ([[posts/holey-graphene-molecular-stencil]]).

Graphene monoxide / eCOphite — company chemistry ([[topics/finance/2026-09-15-conovate-doe-award]]), not GO.
“Graphene battery” in a headline may mean a conductive additive, a coating, an anode experiment, or wishful copy.

See [[reference/misconceptions]] and [[guides/glossary]].