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THOMSON REUTERS最近数据分析(12/2011)

1. TOP 20 COUNTRIES IN ALL FIELDS, 2001-AUGUST 31, 2011
在这里看，中国近十年来科研的整体水平就是个笑话。欧洲十分强大。一直看好瑞士，没看错。

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Would graphene see a mania, an insanity, the tipping point and finally, the bubble?

After reading The long game (Nature 473, 419; 2011) and The trials of new carbon (Nature 469, 14–16; 2011), the word bubble came to my mind spontaneously. That impression does not com out of nowhere, since anyone can sense the innumerability of research articles relating graphene.

The most heartening words are “it typically takes any technology some 20 years to emerge from the lab and be commercialized”, to the scientists, at least. But is there a chance that after those years, applications still do not see the light?

An analogy is nanotechnology, though the span of this field is much larger (which may also include the graphene-based technology). An ACS Nano article describes that nano is in its posthype era. It explains that the hype cycle is credited to Gartner Research and has been broadly applied to the maturity, adoption, and application of emerging technologies. The hype cycle proceeds through five phases: (1) technology trigger; (2) peak of inflated expectations; (3) trough of disillusionment; (4) slope of enlightenment; and (5) plateau of productivity. In an NSF report that features the future of nanotechnology, we can see that the promising applications of nanoscience and nanotechnology are already on their way.

Hope that the graphene-based technology will get to its own posthype era and the bubble never emerges.