The Golden Eras of Graphene Science and Technology: Bibliographic Evidences From Journal and Patent Publications

TL;DR

This paper analyzes bibliometric data on graphene research to identify the timing of its 'Golden Eras', revealing that significant scientific and technological leadership emerged after initial phases, with key periods in 2010 and 2012.

Contribution

It provides a bibliometric analysis of graphene publications and patents to identify the historical peaks of scientific and technological development.

Findings

The 'Golden Era' of graphene science was in 2010.

The 'Golden Era' of graphene technology was in 2012.

Leadership in graphene research emerged after initial phases.

Abstract

Today's scientific research is an expensive enterprise funded largely by taxpayers' and corporate groups' monies. It is a critical part in the competition between nations, and all nations want to discover fields of research that promise to create future industries, and dominate these by building up scientific and technological expertise early. However, our understanding of the value chain going from science to technology is still in a relatively infant stage, and the conversion of scientific leadership into market dominance remains very much an alchemy rather than a science. In this paper, we analyze bibliometric records of scientific journal publications and patents related to graphene, at the aggregate level as well as on the temporal and spatial dimensions. We find the present leaders of graphene science and technology emerged rather late in the race, after the initial scientific leaders lost their footings. More importantly, notwithstanding the amount of funding already committed, we find evidences that suggest the 'Golden Eras' of graphene science and technology were in 2010 and 2012 respectively, in spite of the continued growth of journal and patent publications in this area.