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The GRAPHIC-RF Collaborative Research Project reports on recent progress in the epitaxial growth of graphene on 4H-SiC off-axis substrates (Nanoscale Research Letters 6, 269, 2011) showing that strain effects at the interface between the substrate and the graphene layer induce a formation of 1-2 nm high wrinkles. The groups involved in the project have also studied the electronic properties such as the electron mean free path in graphene-based samples prepared by different techniques and on various substrates (4H-SiC (0001) and SiO₂) relevant for electronics applications (Applied Physics Letters, 97, 132101, 2010). The observed effects are attributed to charge screening and inhomogeneities at interfaces (Physica E, 2011). The same technique was used to investigate the lateral homogeneity of the electron mean free path both in pristine and ion-irradiated graphene. In the first case, the electron mean free path is mainly limited by charged impurities, whereas after irradiation an important role is played by lattice vacancies. Theoretical investigations focused on the quantum transport properties in graphene-based electronic devices (Applied Phyisics Letters 98, 023113, 2011 and Nanoscale Research Letters 6, 234, 2011) using methods based on combined ab initio/semi-empirical approaches. These studies allowed to accurately describe the electronic properties of epitaxial graphene systems in the presence of local or extended perturbations of their electronic symmetry like defects, metallic contacts and interfaces with the substrate.

Andre Geim and Konstantin Novoselov from University of Manchester (UK) win the 2010 Nobel Prize in Physics for their "goundbreaking experiments regarding the two-dimensional material graphene".