Abstract

Background: The nature of graphene makes it a highly sought after material for transparent and non transparent electrodes and double electrode designs for supercapacitors. It has been well documented that graphene can be used for transparent electrodes in flat panel displays, tough screens, and solar cells. In this case of supercapacitors, transparency is less important than energy storage capacity. However, even in this application, graphene has the potential to excel. A significant number of very recent inventions disclose the use of graphene as various electrodes for such applications and are compiled in this review article.

Objective: This review article covers the existing knowledge and patent base for manufacturing of graphene as well as the very recent patent base for the use of graphene as transparent electrode for application such as display devices and touch screen and the manufacturing of such devices and graphene based components.

Method: The US Patent Base was thoroughly searched in order to review the existing patents on graphene based transparent electrodes for flat panel display devices as well as supercapacitors and their fabrication.

Results: A large number of patents disclose the application and fabrication of graphene based flat panel display devices and supercapacitors and their fabrication. In some cases, graphene is not specifically mentioned, but carbon containing materials which include graphene. Just the very recent existing patent base disclosed a wide range of applications based on graphene including flat panel display devices, touch panel devices, and supercapacitors. The article covers more than 40 patents from the period between 2015 and 2017.

Conclusion: The significant number of literature and patents, which discloses numerous methods to prepare graphene, fabricate and apply components based on graphene, and manufacture devices based on such components, makes it evident that graphene is considered to be an important material for the next generation of transparent and non transparent electrodes and supercapacitors.

Keywords: Graphene, flat panel displays, solar cells, supercapacitor, transparent electrodes, touch screen.