Evidence for Graphene Formation in Thomas Edison’s 1879 Carbon Filament Experiments

Abstract

Thomas Alva Edison was an American inventor famous for his breakthroughs in stable electric lighting. He founded one of the first modern research laboratories in Menlo Park, New Jersey, United States and invented the first commercially viable electric lightbulb in 1879. Here, we recreated conditions similar to those used by Edison to produce his original carbon filament light bulb and show that the carbon filament was converted into graphene. This suggests that Edison might have indeed formed the same in his experiments 145 years ago.